


Seasons

by shittyfoureyes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Awkward First Times, Body Worship, Bottom Eren Yeager, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, Consensual Sex, Developing Relationship, Devotion, Enthusiastic Consent, Eren Yeager is a Little Shit, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Smut, Happy Ending, Healing, Healing Sex, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Intimacy, Joyful, Life Partners, Life-Affirming Sex, Loss of Virginity, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Love, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, No Angst, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Oaths & Vows, Possessive Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Post-Canon, Promises, Scars, Soulmates, Spoilers, Tattooed Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Top Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), slightly melancholy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:40:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittyfoureyes/pseuds/shittyfoureyes
Summary: He loves this Eren of barren woods, bleak days, and rushing waters stilled and silenced by the deepest winter chill, the first Eren he kissed. He loves him as he’s loved every season of Eren, and he takes comfort in knowing that not all is lost; he sees what lies dormant in Eren’s eyes. The spark of life is not gone forever; it is merely sleeping until the day the sun returns to awaken it, just as it has always done, faithfully and without fail since the very dawn of time.
Relationships: Levi & Eren Yeager, Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 38
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flamoria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamoria/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my gift to you, Flamoria. This is the only way I know how to express my gratitude and appreciation for all you've done for me. You've been so encouraging to me, and I'm happy to have you here. Besides, you've given me two amazing gifts that I adore and bring me an abundance of joy, so what kind of friend would I be if I didn't reciprocate?
> 
> I hope this brings you as much joy as your writing has brought me!

He couldn’t recognize the voices; he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Didn’t know where he was. He had the impression he was underwater, the blood rushing in his ears as powerfully as swift river rapids after days of storms, swirling and muddied from the violence of the great, unrelenting deluge that sent the waters surging higher and higher until the river escaped the containment of the shores and overtook the land.

_“...got lucky…”_

His body was numb, but there was so much pain in his heart. It bled; he tasted it.

_I’m sorry, Eren. I’m so fucking sorry._

It was half-dark but growing even darker, colder, quieter. Was the sun setting already?

_No… no. Not yet. It’s not time to sleep yet. I can’t sleep yet._

_“...covered in his… blood…”_

_Forgive me, Eren. Please live._

Night fell. He closed his eye, sighed when he saw the sun rising in shades of green and gold, felt the warmth and brightness of a smile, and then nothing more. 

_"...Shoot him in the head!”_

He felt his body rise; he heard whispers. Angels carrying him to heaven? If he could’ve laughed, he would’ve.

_“... Levi…?”_

_I’m tired._

_"... He’s dead.”_

\---

The earth was swaying, and he couldn’t hear anything over the terrible rumbling that jarred his aching bones. He couldn’t move his arms. Couldn’t move his legs. Couldn’t even lift his head. He was trapped. Everything was in pain.

He heard a familiar voice nearby, and then one farther away.

Shards of something were falling onto his body–rock, crystal, shrapnel, he didn’t know, couldn’t see–all he knew was that it hurt, that they were piercing through his skin in straight lines, two by two, one after another after another, on his face, his chest, his arms… He was being buried alive.

Alive?

He opened his eyes–his _eye_ –and there were eyes–there was _an eye_ –looking back at him. Brown. Angry.

He closes them again, and he doesn’t see blackness when he does. He sees more eyes. 

Green. Smiling.

\---

It was over.

They won.

Against all odds, he made it to the end. He survived. So many people survived.

He should’ve been happy about it. He should’ve been relieved.

He couldn’t be. Not yet. Not until he knew for sure, saw it with his own eye.

Not until he knew Eren was alive.

\---

When Eren saw his face, he wept.

Levi held back his tears as fiercely as he held Eren. 

Neither of them spoke. They couldn’t. 

They didn’t need to.

\---

There was a celebration, a grand parade with vast throngs of cheering, clapping, crying survivors. There was a podium, and a joyful commander spoke words from atop it that he couldn’t hear. He searched the crowd; he was nowhere to be seen. He spared one last look at the platform in the center of the swarm, and he scrubbed at his face; he thought he saw a one-armed commander beside the one-eyed one.

He turned his back and walked away.

This was his party, and he wasn’t there. It was _their_ party, but he already knew that neither of them planned to attend. 

Their celebration would not take place here.

\---

He followed the faint form of footsteps fading in the shifting sands, letting the wind erase them until they’d be nothing more than memories.

He knew Eren would be there, and he was.

The sea breeze whipped around Eren, his long, messy strands of lustreless hair becoming more tangled as they blew around his head, and the back of his shirt caught the air, flapping and puffing out like a sail.

Eren sat motionless, staring off into the horizon with his arms around his knees and his chin resting on top. He showed no sign that he’d heard boots crunching in kelp-littered sand, and even when Levi sat down beside him, he continued to stare unblinkingly ahead as if he was the only person left on earth.

For a long time, the two exhausted men sat by the sea in silence. It should’ve felt joyful, but the sea birds were crying salt tears, and even the mighty crash of the waves against the shore sounded like mere whispers, thousands of hushed and melancholy voices rushing toward them but being dragged back before their message could be heard.

“It’s over,” Levi says to the sea, his words quiet and colorless as he joins the ghost of the man he’s always loved in his aimless staring into the blue distance. He’s close enough to feel the heat of Eren’s body, and he sighs in relief. It’s over. There are ghosts beneath the waves, but there is not one beside him.

Eren finally acknowledges Levi with a sidelong glance, and when he turns his head and rests his cheek on his knee, the breeze blows his salt-matted hair away from his face to billow out behind him like a victory banner, like the tails of a scarf.

Levi’s heart clenches in his chest when he sees the eyes that have haunted his dreams since the day he first beheld them. The fire is gone from them now, and though they’re dull as ash, they are no less beautiful. Levi thinks they’ve never been more beautiful as they are right now.

Levi can feel it between them, that spark he’s always felt, the unrelenting tug on a thread that has always been near its breaking point, and now the tension has reached its limit. It can be pulled no tighter without snapping.

It should’ve snapped long ago. How has it endured so long without fraying–without weakening? 

It’s time.

It’s far, far past time.

And it’s okay for it to break now, as long as they hold on to the ends. He’ll hold his forever, even if Eren lets go.

“I’m sorry,” Eren whispers as he looks at Levi, and there’s pain in seeing him, at seeing his maimed face, and there’s guilt, too, guilt deeper than the sea, but he fights the urge to look away. He’s not sorry about what he did–about what he had to do. That’s not what he means by sorry. To admit this would surely show him for all the monster he knows he is, but humanity’s freedom stopped being his reason for living long ago. 

As he remains gazing into the face he’s adored for as long as he can remember, he realizes now that that’s not entirely true. In a sense, mankind’s freedom was his reason for living and fighting on until the very end–this man’s freedom. He’d saved this man, and to him, that is the only thing that feels like victory.

But look at him–look how much he’s suffered. Look at the silver in that beautiful jet black hair that wasn’t there when they first sat staring out across these waters. Look at the lines at the corners of those silver eyes that won’t stop staring at him even though only one can still see him. How can Levi be looking at him like this after all he let happen to him?

He knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he still prays Levi will never stop looking at him that way.

There is no mention of forgiveness–there is nothing for Levi to forgive–but in refusing to speak the word, he’d spoken it louder. Eren echoed the answer that neither had realized would far surpass forgiveness, and in doing so, the shine returned to the green eyes looking back at Levi. It’s tears that cause it, but they’re beautiful tears, morning sunlight dancing on cresting waves, wet and glimmering on the surface of the infinite green depths.

It wasn’t “I forgive you” that Levi said in return, but rather, “I love you.” 

Eren wept the first time he saw Levi again after the final battle, and he weeps again on the second.

This time there were words, and this time Levi doesn’t hold back. For the first time, Levi doesn’t weep alone.

When they spoke those words into existence, and the tears of pain, joy, and relief subsided, the thread finally snapped.

It may have broken, but it was meant to.

For a moment frozen in time, each man holds their invisible halves, two limp strands of equal length, frayed at their severed ends.

Despite Eren having accepted and reciprocated his confession, and though it’s smaller than ever before, there is still room for doubt. Deep down, he knows Eren is telling him the truth. He’s always been conscious of the love Eren held for him; he’s seen it in Eren’s eyes, in his actions, heard it in his voice, felt it in the air between them whether they were alone or in the company of others. But still, Eren could have said it back for any number of reasons. It could’ve been something other than love that always made Eren look at him like he hung the moon, but even then, life has taught him that nothing is guaranteed–most of all time. Just that one extra second of doubt tacked on to the years was too long. 

“Eren,” Levi says as he draws close, his name a question breathed timidly across warm, willing lips, and Eren is still as he turns his eyes to him. Levi swallows at this sight; at this moment that still seems so surreal to him. “Will you be mine?”

“I already am,” Eren answers, and in nearly the same way Levi had asked: softly, with his words a breath on the older man’s face. However, where Levi’s words were timid, Eren’s were confident, and the only reason his eyes left Levi’s was, for a split-second, to glance instead at his lips. He takes Levi’s face in his hands, looks him straight in the eye–he’s blown away to see his brave captain look so shaken and amazed–and he tells him the truth. “I have always been yours.”

“Give yourself to me.” Levi’s steely eyes bore straight into Eren’s, and he already knows what Eren’s about to say when he begins to open his mouth. He doesn’t give him the chance to say it. “Everything.”

Eren smiles and says it anyway.

"I already belong to you, Levi. No one else can have me. Didn't you know I've been waiting for you all this time?"

They’re close, so close that Eren would hardly have to move at all for his lips to finally touch Levi’s after all these torturous years spent longing for the man, but at the impact of Eren’s words, Levi’s good eye widens, and he makes a strange sound; a gasp, or maybe a cough, like he’s landed hard on the ground, like there’s something in his throat and he’s trying not to choke. In his shock, Levi had jerked away before their lips could meet, but Eren displayed no offense. And it’s okay; he’s fine waiting because Eren is smiling, and his hand is slipping from his face, and then Eren’s fingers lace with his and squeeze.

Just like that, two threads are one again. 

Eren is smiling for the first time in years, and Levi for what feels like the first time in his life.

The thread was never weak. It was waiting for one more sharp tug, waiting to be stretched to its limits. Waiting to snap. 

It was waiting to snap so it could never be broken again.

When two strands are woven together, they become inseparable; they form something new. A cord that’s shorter but stronger, one durable enough to hold the weight that the two could not bear on their own.

Levi pulls Eren by it, but there’s no tension in the cord, no resistance.

He goes along willingly. He’d follow Levi to the gates of hell, but this time it’s different. 

This time Eren doesn't follow behind him.

Despite the shortness of the thread, there’s slack because it’s held between their joined hands as side-by-side, and as equals, they step forward together onto the new path laid out before them and embark on their final expedition.

They never join the others in their victory celebration that day.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t intentional that he’d chosen such a location, but Levi couldn’t think of anywhere else where they’d be undisturbed. The city is swarming with people, and there wasn’t an inn with a vacant room that they could rent. Even if there was, they’d have little or no privacy there; there’s no way the walls would be thick enough, and being seen entering a bedchamber together would be sure to raise some eyebrows. Even worse than eyebrows raised at seeing two men locking themselves behind closed doors ( _and_ at hearing the strange sounds emanating from behind them throughout the night) would be for them to be recognized. The captain of the Survey Corps and the titan that won the war alongside him? That would be it for their joyful reunion. 

So Levi took him to the only place no one would think to look.

The bunker.

A basement.

The irony of it is not lost on him. 

Thankfully, Eren doesn’t seem to mind.

Levi does, though. He remembered what happened that day.

Instead of the wild-eyed boy with the fiery spirit that he saw in the cell beneath the courthouse that fateful day, he sees something else. A stranger. He knows it’s the same boy he’d fallen in love with a lifetime ago, but they look nearly nothing alike. The one he sees now looks at him the same way he did then, but all his vibrancy, all his fighting spirit, his _fire_ is gone. His hair is still disheveled, but now it’s long and dirty. His eyes are still the same breathtaking emerald green, but they’re tired now, faded. There is still a trace of youth in his face, but it’s lost so much of its softness; it’s sharp-edged and gaunt, rosy cheeks now ashen, unshaven, stubbled in apathy, so unlike the boy who fretted over keeping smooth after he’d noticed the weird look he directed at his scruffy chin. His lanky, muscular body lacks its former cocksure posture, his broad shoulders slouch. He’d held his hand and felt the grime, ran his fingertips over jagged edges of overgrown nails.

Eren looks like he did that day that still haunts his dreams: dirty, despondent, hopeless. Like he’d given up. It disappointed him. It pissed him off.

It broke his heart.

He hates seeing it. Hates seeing Eren like this, hates being reminded of it. He hates it, and he never wants to see him like this again. He loves him–loves Eren.

He loves this Eren, too, loves him unconditionally, forever and always, but this Eren hurts. This Eren wears his injuries in a way that his titan power can’t heal. He sees enough of Eren’s internal pain and strife in his eyes–always has–and it hurts, even more, to see his brokenness on the outside too. The war is over, and Eren is the one who won it for them. 

It’s over, and he wants to forget.

Eren’s too busy looking around the room to notice Levi staring at him–to see Levi frowning at him.

It’s not much, and it’s certainly not romantic–the place was designed for people to cower in for survival, not for living in luxury–but it’s enough—a row of bunks, a bath, sink, shower, and toilet. There’re lights and tables and chairs, and shelves stacked with various stockpiled necessities; food, weapons, ammunition, tools and tins and toiletries and god knows what else, Levi can’t tell through the dust and cobwebs.

He doesn’t know how much time has elapsed since they arrived; he feels like he’s been standing there watching Eren forever–really, it was hardly more than a minute, but it seemed like days had passed–and he needs to be near Eren, needs to be close to him, to feel his warmth, inhale his scent, to know that it’s really, finally over, and Eren’s alive, and everything is going to be okay.

He steps forward, and that single second before he closed the distance felt like an eternity, and when he wraps his arms around Eren and rests his head on his back, time stops altogether. Or perhaps it hasn’t stopped at all; maybe this moment is eternity, and if so, he’d gladly spend all of it here with Eren.

Even with this Eren. Especially with this Eren. But if this is eternity, it means he has all the time in the world and more to bring his Eren back, to mend this one, stitch him back together with his hands and his lips and his heart, and if he can’t do that, he’ll make a new one. 

“You look like shit,” Levi mumbles into the back of Eren’s shirt. It smells like his Eren, and it smells like the ocean.

Eren chuckles and lays his arm over Levi’s, squeezes his hand. It’s not like the old one, and Levi would wince in shame if he hadn’t heard Eren’s joyful laughter. Levi would’ve done it again when Eren brought that hand up to his lips and kissed the empty space if he wasn’t so overwhelmingly happy, so _relieved_ to feel those coveted lips on him after pining for them for so very long. Eren doesn’t let go of his hand when Levi turns around in his arms. Eren’s looking into his eyes now, and when he presses his lips there again, on the thick cords of scar tissue where fingers should be, they’re smiling.

“I love you, Levi,” Eren says, and he’s still smiling, stroking his thumb over the place his lips were, and Levi can’t breathe. How he’s longed to hear those words, how he wished it were true–that he was loved, that Eren loved him. How much he wanted to say them over and over to this young man who’d saved the world, and now he can.

Or he could if only he could take a breath.

Warm eyes never leave his as a warm hand with all its fingers rises to cup his cheek, and then a warm thumb trails adoringly down his face. Eren reverently traces the still-healing red lash that splits his features from his brow to his neck. He does it slowly, softly, brushing just above and then down through the gap where hair will never grow again. Eren’s already gentle touch lightens when descending below his thin, forever paralyzed eyebrow. No matter how familiar Levi is with the sensation by now, it is still so unsettling to be made aware of that valley of numbness that makes Eren’s one fingertip feel like two.

Levi closes his blind eye as Eren carefully ghosts over the lid with the pad of his thumb.

A cold prickle of insecurity has Levi looking away when Eren touches him there–even though only one can see, both eyes can still move–and he swallows before looking back up at Eren’s eternally flawless face. He’s reluctant to do so in fear of what he’ll find when he does, but somehow Eren’s expression hasn’t changed–all the love and admiration are still there in the verdant eyes that haven’t once stopped gazing so painfully fondly into his. It’s still present in the smile on his faintly trembling lips, and if that smile weren’t growing wider by the minute, he’d think Eren was holding back tears. 

Perhaps he is.

Levi inhales with an involuntary shiver when Eren moves away from the delicate skin around his eye, and Eren’s touch grows firmer as it follows the curving scar until his thumb comes to rest on the side of his mouth, softly stroking over the split lips that Eren never got to kiss while they could still feel everything. 

But he kisses them now. 

It’s only a split-second touch of lips, a glancing contact so faint that it could’ve been mistaken for a breath, and though it was quicker than a heartbeat and light as air, they gasped; it hit them like a blow to the face–like the crack of a thunder spear. Eren is blown backward in the blast, yet Levi freezes in place, shellshocked.

They’re speechless, staring in a wide-eyed stupor with racing hearts and faces hovering so close that they can taste each other’s breath, wondering what the fuck just happened. The sudden movement of Levi’s hand startles Eren out of his staring, and in the time it took him to blink, Levi is motionless once again–with his fingertips on his lip.

They’d just kissed. Eren just _kissed_ him. 

Levi touches his scarred lips and is surprised to bump into Eren’s thumb still at the corner of his mouth. 

Eren saw and felt and had kissed them anyway; he hadn’t shied away in disappointment or disgust at the other Jaeger on his skin. When Eren’s thumb moves away to join the rest of the long, warm fingers on his cheek, Eren still doesn’t shy away; he presses their lips together again and again until Levi is aching inside.

Levi’s knees buckle when he feels something hot and wet on his bottom lip. They threaten to give way entirely when, instead of slipping his tongue into his mouth as he’d expected, Eren shifts slightly and slowly drags the tip from his bottom lip to the top and then back down again–Eren is tracing the scars. It was like Eren didn’t care that he’d been forever damaged. It felt to him that Eren was somehow trying to reassure him of this, that he was okay with the way he is now–that he still wanted him despite the ugliness. It was too much for Levi; he didn’t know what to do with himself, didn’t know how much more he could endure–nothing could have prepared him for this amount of love.

And he keeps on doing it until Levi can’t take it anymore and pushes his tongue past Eren’s lips to make it stop. They gasp at their first full taste of each other, both going still until the shock subsides and gives way to pleasure, and they begin curiously exploring each other’s mouths. It’s a little weird, this new sensation of tongues touching and noses bumping, not knowing when to breathe or where to put their hands, but they manage. No matter how many times they’ve fantasized about kissing like this, practicing it endlessly in their heads, it was still clumsy with inexperience, surprisingly crowded-feeling and sloppy, and better than they’d imagined.

Soft sighs into each other’s mouths turned into little throaty sounds of pleasure as they learned how to move their heads and lips and tongues, and those sounds turned into eager moans as they discovered new rhythms and patterns together. Awkward hands fumbled and roamed looking for places to rest, and eventually, Levi’s hands settled on Eren’s face. Eren didn’t know why Levi suddenly broke the kiss, and Levi himself wasn’t quite sure until Eren straightened his neck to look at him, and the motion caused his hands to shift slightly. His stomach flipped with nausea, and his heart clenched; it was his body reacting to the foreignness he felt beneath his palms and between his fingers.

Rough stubble on Eren’s cheeks and jaw, whiskers sprouting up in sparse patches like weeds on his chin. Long tangled locks, dingy and sticky with salt from the sea-spray. Levi pulls back to inspect him, taking a more thorough inventory of the changes.

This is the Eren who wears war, the Eren who _was_ war. Every time he looks at him, he sees fear and pain, bloody battles and fallen comrades, and it’s not Eren he wants to forget–he will never forget Eren. It isn’t possible. What he wants to forget is the horrors of war from which he wished Eren could’ve been spared.

Nevertheless, he loves this Eren of barren woods, bleak days, and rushing waters stilled and silenced by the deepest winter chill, the first Eren he kissed; he loves him as he’s loved every season of Eren. And he takes comfort in knowing that not all is lost; he sees what lies dormant in Eren’s eyes. The spark of life is not gone forever; it is merely sleeping until the day the sun returns to awaken it, just as it has always done, faithfully and without fail since the very dawn of time. 

Nothing will bring back that bright-eyed fifteen-year-old soldier who smiled and shouted and charged headfirst into danger every chance he got. And yes, he misses that Eren, and he’s sure that hopeful, determined, passionate young man is still in there somewhere, but he doesn’t need the past anymore. He has the future. He can make a new life for himself–for both of them–a life he thought they’d never get the chance to see. Life in a peaceful world–a life they can build together.

The war is over now, and with it ends another season of their lives. It’s time to bid this Eren a final farewell, and he’ll do it with a kiss–he’ll love this Eren one last time, wholly and utterly, proof that he has always and will always cherish him and want him and adore him no matter how the seasons change, no matter what the future has in store. 

“Levi,” Eren whispers, looking shyly through his lashes at him with heavy-lidded eyes, and he unconsciously licks the excess saliva from the corner of his mouth. He bites his lip and stares silently at the older man, as if waiting for something, and perhaps that something was a smile, because when the corners of his lips twitch upward, he releases the bitten one from between his teeth and whispers again, quieter this time, with a voice that’s as soft and light as the pink blossoming on his cheeks, “That was my first kiss.”

Eren’s eyes darted away from his face to stare at something beside his foot, and then he bit his lip again; Levi can’t quite parse the meaning of the action. He’s pink-cheeked as if embarrassed and averting his eyes as if ashamed, and he would read these things as such if it weren’t for the fact that Eren is also smiling. The demure expression looks strange on Eren’s new face. It clashes with his tired eyes and haggard appearance, but in it, something of the old Eren shines through the patina of time, and, yes, thanks to no gods, there it is: the proof that the Eren he remembers is still in there. 

Those precious emerald eyes are on him once again, the expression he’d been musing over changes slightly, and Levi then realizes he hadn’t paid enough attention to what Eren said. He’s been waiting for him to say something about it. He’s still doing it, doing what he swore to himself he’d never do again; he’s making Eren wait for him.

“That makes two of us, then,” Levi confesses, yet he lacks the emotion that accompanied Eren’s confession of the same. To him, it’s nothing to be shy or insecure about. People are disgusting; why would he ever want someone else’s filthy, disease-ridden spit in his mouth? 

He’d always held that opinion on kissing, and though there was a fleeting aesthetic attraction here or there throughout the years before Eren, his opinion remained unaffected. And no attraction he’d ever experienced could even _begin_ to compare to what he felt toward Eren when he came crashing into his life. It wasn’t Eren’s looks–not entirely, at least–it was something more, something else that drew him to Eren. And one day, it dawned on him; he realized what that strange pull was. It wasn’t solely his eyes that were attracted to him, but his heart as well.

He’s never felt anything like what he feels for Eren. It’s only natural that he’d suddenly become open to the idea of kissing someone–but only a certain someone; someone that he _loves_. Imagining kissing Eren made him hard; imagining kissing anyone else made him want to puke. 

Knowing that he’d just been the first to put his lips upon Eren’s, and Eren’s his? That’s another new and confusing feeling. Satisfaction and fright, arousal and comfort, lightness, relief, anxiety, and a deep, fierce, unrelenting possessiveness.

Eren shoots him this wide-eyed look as if to say, _“really?”_ and it interrupts his train of thought, but Levi meant what he said and doesn’t feel like talking more about it. He wants more. There are more firsts he wants to take from Eren and firsts to give him in return.

A tense silence falls over them, breaths held in anticipation, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Levi takes a step back, takes Eren’s hands in his, takes a deep but confident breath.

“Eren,” Levi says, firmly addressing the man he loves by his hallowed name, determination in the eyes locked with the other’s. He has Eren’s full attention, a familiar feeling that puts him at ease. Even though he’s already sure of his decision, he needs to know if Eren is as confident. “Do you love me?”

Though puzzled by the unexpected question, Eren answers immediately and with conviction.

“I’ve always loved you. I’ve never stopped loving you.” Eren’s expression grows serious, and his gaze intensifies so drastically that Levi swears he can see bonfires behind those big green eyes–wild flames scorching vast brown winter prairies and funeral pyres for ages past.

It’s strange and exhilarating to have that look directed at him. Levi never thought he’d see it again now that there are no more titans left to kill. He admires it for a moment before giving a brisk nod and a grunt of affirmation. 

“Do you still trust me?” Levi asks, and this is where his stern expression wavers. This is his greatest insecurity. His greatest guilt. He knows he’s let Eren down, failed to protect him, treated him coldly, _struck_ him, and he remembers every single time he’s wronged him. He’s been keeping track, and the marks keep adding up. Levi knows he doesn’t deserve Eren’s trust anymore, but he will spend the rest of his life doing whatever it takes to earn it again.

“Yes. I trust you, and that has never once changed.” Levi is the only one he’s never doubted and the only one who never lost faith in him. Levi is his constant–the one thing he knew he could ground himself on. Levi is his cornerstone, and Levi may never know how many times his presence in his life has pulled him back from the edge. Levi never needed to question this.

A hush falls over them as Levi assesses the answers, and Eren grows more restless by the second. Invisible energy crackles all around them. They can almost taste it; sharp and metallic and tingling. Hairs stand on end. Lightning is about to strike.

Both of them know why they’re here. Eren didn’t need to be told. It’s been hanging heavy in the air since the door locked behind them. 

The anticipation and excitement, the thrill and desire, the joy and elation and eagerness–all of those things were already overwhelming enough individually, but experiencing all of them simultaneously is too powerful a force for Eren to endure. He can't take the suspense anymore. Eren licks his lips.

“Levi…?” Eren asks lowly, and the buzz of impatience lends a slight waver to his words. There’s a slight delay between when he says his name and when Levi’s expression changes, adding the more recognizable quirk of curiosity to the mix of thrilling yet unfamiliar emotions visible in him. Levi inquires with his eyes, silently waiting for Eren to finish his question. Eren wets his mouth, and when he speaks again, his words are twice as breathy and wavering. “Are we going to have sex?”

The curiosity melts away, and Levi closes his eyes and exhales a long, controlled breath to steady himself before he answers. 

“Yes, Eren,” Levi replies, and though his voice is as low and flat as always, Eren’s never heard so much warmth in it. “We are.”

Another moment of inertia follows, another reticent pause where hopeful eyes seek answers, another tense and heavy silence soon to be broken by a bolt from the blue.


	3. Chapter 3

A gasp comes out of Eren’s open mouth, and Levi watches as Eren closes his eyes, shivers, and bites his lip, the display sending a thrilling jolt of electricity shooting violently down Levi’s spine. His fingers twitch around Eren’s. He trembles. 

“I’m so ready for you, Levi,” Eren whispers, and he lifts their joined hands until Levi understands the gesture and lets go. With Levi’s strong, protective arms around his neck, Eren removes every bit of space left between them. 

He seals his pledge with a kiss. It’s a kiss that’s sincere and purposed, soft and sweet and shaky, though not with fear or nerves, not with lust. Even in its modesty, it takes their breath away. When their lips part, Eren uses the scant air in his lungs to whisper against Levi’s mouth, “I’m yours. Take me.”

Levi’s eyes drift shut, and his body shudders as he rubs his nose against Eren’s. A deep, rumbling groan escapes him as he steadies himself on his rock, pulling his lover’s larger body even closer, holding him tighter to stop the trembling that the effort only worsens.

Eren makes a needy sound before he leans in, and when, instead of kissing him, he bites Levi’s lip and sucks it into his mouth to roll his tongue over it, Levi snaps. Grabs him by the front of the shirt, yanks him down, shoves his tongue into his mouth, grunts when their teeth clack together–it’s still awkward, still messy, but he’s sure he’ll get the hang of it soon; he intends to practice a lot–and then Eren surrenders to him and goes limp as a ragdoll, turned to putty in his hands.

Eren’s shirt is bunched up in Levi’s fists, twisting and pulling so roughly that it seems Levi intends to tear it right off of him, and the mere thought of Levi ripping off his clothes has him throbbing painfully in his pants. He’s spent many a lonely night imagining just that. Eren supposes that now that this is happening, he’s allowed to do another one of those things he’d spent a lot of time imagining with his hand down his pants.

Eren’s hands slide down from Levi’s face, and they trembled before, but now they’re outright shaking, and they’re barely past Levi’s shoulders. He’s so excited, though. So happy. Not just happy, but giddy. Truthfully, he’s still a little nervous, but he’s also really fucking horny, and it seems Levi is too, so he doesn’t have time to worry about how much he must resemble a blushing maiden on her wedding night.

So he ignores how much his hands are shaking as they descend, and when they reach Levi’s belt, Eren helps himself to his own fistful of clothing. One hand tugs Levi’s shirt until the hem comes untucked and then immediately slips underneath, both men sighing into each other’s mouths when Eren’s large, feverish hand slides firmly up Levi’s muscular back. Eren only used one hand to untuck Levi’s shirt, but that doesn’t mean the other one has been idle. It’s been slowly creeping down past the belt. Perhaps Levi hadn’t noticed it in the commotion because when it finds its home on Levi’s right asscheek–fuck, it’s even better than Eren imagined, and it’s the perfect size for his hand–and squeezes, Levi tenses up and gasps like a drowning man.

Eren moans. Levi growls and bats Eren’s hands away from him, and Eren doesn’t get a chance to find out why because Levi started swearing at him before he could. Eren really shouldn’t have the urge to laugh right now, but Levi is yanking on his shirt and scowling, muttering curses under his breath, all of this while having a very prominent bulge protruding from the front of his pants. 

“Brat, I didn’t give you permission to get this fucking tall,” Levi snarls, and it’s the palpable frustration in his voice and the desperation on his face that pushes Eren’s self-control to its very limit. Eren wonders how this deadly, stony-faced, and sometimes downright pants-pissingly _terrifying_ little man can be so goddamn adorable, and he knows he absolutely cannot spoil this special moment by laughing, so he stores this as a memory to revisit later and gives his captain a hand.

“Sorry, sir,” Eren says with a sparkling smile that only serves to rile Levi up further, and the little chuckle that’s so close to escaping makes him doubly grateful that he’s currently lifting his shirt; he’s one step closer to being naked, and he gets to hide his face in the process. 

Before his shirt is over his head, something happens that immediately takes care of the persistent urge to laugh that he was relying on it to hide. His stomach tenses when he feels it; his cock throbs when he hears it.

What he felt was Levi’s arm winding possessively around his waist; his bare abdomen pressing against Levi’s still clothed one. Soft lips dragging back and forth over his nipple. He felt his arms freed from his shirt, and he felt his hair tickling the tops of his shoulders as he shook it out.

What he heard was Levi growling _“mine,”_ and that was just before he felt… teeth. And when the teeth sank into his flesh, Eren’s body shivered all over, and an almost unbearable ache swelled between his legs when his overloaded brain finally caught up with him and processed what had happened. Levi _bit_ him. He bit him _hard_ , and he fucking _loved_ it. And when he looks down, it’s right as Levi is finishing up by flicking his tongue over the mark he’d made. Eren hadn’t the forethought to stop it from happening, and his heart sinks when he sees the twin arcs of red notches fade to nearly nothing right before his eyes.

Eren is glad that Levi looked away before it happened because he didn’t know if he could bear to see Levi’s face when he realized his body had erased his mark as soon as he’d made it. Eren doesn’t know if he can bear the look Levi is giving him right now, either, because Levi’s staring straight up at him, dark eye wild and hazy, his chin resting on his chest, the skin on both places just as wet with saliva as his swollen lips. And Levi’s lips… fuck. Levi’s mouth is open and inviting, and he’s panting so roughly that Levi’s chest pushes into him with every hard rise and fall. 

It’s almost too much for Eren’s poor heart to handle. And he really must be a suicidal bastard because he wants more. So what if his heart might explode? He is still a titan, after all. Whatever happens to him can’t be any worse than getting your head shot off. He can take it. It’ll be worth it either way.

Eren’s not afraid of being devoured by this elegant, ravenous animal. He’ll gladly place his beating heart in its salivating mouth, welcomes its deadly jaws around his neck, but he’s no prey, and this is no predator–his treasured beast has no interest in game that won’t fight back. He’ll lie down for him, but he’ll do it with a spear at his throat.

“Yes,” Eren groans again before looking into Levi’s eyes with matching ferocity. There’s a seconds’ pause and then a sharp gasp when Eren buries his fingers in Levi’s hair, grabs a fistful of soot-black silk, and, with only enough force to goad and not to hurt, tugs his captain’s head back by it. “Claim me, Captain.”

Levi’s body seizes up, rock-hard biceps flexing as his arms tighten so hard around Eren that it squeezes the air from his lungs, his forehead falling forward onto Eren’s bare chest when his hair slips loose from his fingers. He gives a great, shuddering groan, so deep and guttural that its vibration carries into Eren's chest. 

With his face still buried between Eren’s pectoral muscles, Levi speaks, and his voice is so quiet and gravelly that Eren can hardly hear what he says–but he does hear it, and his captain’s growled command makes him lightheaded and weak in the knees.

“Get on the bed.”

Eren’s never been so happy to take orders from someone before, and he gladly obeys once Levi loosens his hold on him and gives him a shove in the right direction. Eren would never, ever, in a million years let anyone push him around like this, and Levi knows it. So when Eren tumbles ass-first onto the bed and crawls backward on his hands, Levi knows he’s done it willingly.

Levi doesn’t immediately pounce on him, just stands there and stares for a minute with that electrifying, indecipherable look that keeps stealing his breath. Eren stares back, heart racing, body buzzing as suspense and anticipation mount higher and higher until the pressure becomes so enormous that Eren feels like he’s about to erupt.

Levi keeps his gaze locked on Eren as he begins to move. Eren had no intention of looking elsewhere, but once he sees what Levi is doing, nothing in the world, not even a titan crashing through the cellar door could persuade him to turn his attention away from him.

Eren is leaning back on his elbows, and goosebumps are appearing along his forearms. He’s trying to swallow away the bizarre phenomenon of having a mouth that is paradoxically dry and salivating at the same time while he watches on in silent awe. He doesn’t even realize he’s instinctively spreading his legs while his eyes follow the graceful staccato flicks of Levi’s fingers as they hurriedly work open the buttons on his shirt, and he doesn’t realize he moaned when that shirt fell open, and Levi’s hands instantly dropped to his belt and jerked the end clear of the buckle.

Levi’s hands linger on his belt, and Eren licks his lips as Levi pauses for a moment, looking him up and down before barking another command at him.

“Strip.”

There’s a disconcerting gap in time between the word leaving Levi’s mouth and it reaching Eren’s ears. Eren’s been too engrossed in watching his teenage fantasies coming to life right before his eyes, and, really, he had been paying attention–so much attention that the existence of anything other than the sight of Levi Ackerman undressing slipped his mind. Levi glances down at his hands, and that snaps Eren out of it, so when Levi looks back up at him less than a second later, Eren’s licking his lips again and nodding.

Eren does not object in the slightest to Levi’s order; he groans, and the face he makes as he does sends heat flashing across Levi’s skin. Is that how Eren’s face will look when he delivers him to his peak? The temperature climbs higher when Eren lifts his head back up and opens his eyes anew to reveal a darkness that nearly blots out the vivid green that is now merely a glowing halo around the black. The moon passes over the sun, and it envelops Levi in its shadow.

Eren thought he was fast, but Levi was faster; he’d only had time to kick his shoes off and shove his pants partway down his thighs before Levi was crawling over him wearing nothing but the light grey shirt that hung open wider while he kneeled. As unbelievable as it was, Levi’s cock wasn’t the first thing Eren looked at. When Levi’s shirt fluttered, a glimpse of something strange caught his eye, but before he could get a better look at it, Levi’s erection bumped against his thigh and, naturally, it became the absolute center of Eren’s universe.

But staring is rude, especially when you’re doing it to someone’s genitalia, and Eren still had just enough presence of mind left to remember that. He showed some decency by shifting his attention to the face of the beautiful man hovering over him with his hair hanging in front of his eyes, softly panting through his slightly parted lips. And the look in Levi’s eyes—his _eye_ —shit. It _did_ things to him. Still dilated with arousal, but not wild like before. And his gaze is still intense, but it’s an intense softness now; a gentle, glowing warmth, even the sightless one looking like a beautiful, milk-white pearl, and the deep blue iris of the other is shining so strangely that Eren’s heart jumps into his throat with a mighty thump, his body grows hot all over, and he’s filled to near-bursting with a staggering need to kiss this man he’s loved for nearly all of his short life.

And so, raising an arm from the bed to caress Levi’s cheek, he does. He slowly slides his fingers through Levi’s hair, leans up, and with his broad palm protectively cupping the back of Levi’s head, Eren kisses him. And when Eren kisses him, Levi huffs, and his arms shake, and he can’t resist the way Eren’s body pulls his in like a magnet. Levi steadies Eren with a hand on his back, and he doesn’t let his lips leave Eren’s as he carefully lowers them flat onto the bed. 

The two war-weary soldiers kiss, bound up in each other’s warmth, aroused bodies melding together, sighing softly and stroking flushed cheeks until they go dizzy from lack of breath. They separate for only as long as it takes to fill their lungs, and then their mouths are sealed together again, and they share that breath as their tongues slide and flick and explore. Levi’s hands gradually creep down Eren’s body, and he swallows the moan Eren gives him when he drops his weight onto Eren and uses both hands to push his slacks to his knees. 

He doesn’t want to get off of him, doesn’t want to lose Eren’s warmth for even a second–he wants Eren to wrap those thick, muscular thighs around him, but he can’t with his legs still bound by his pants. Instead of getting up to pull them off all the way, Levi shifts around, wiggling his hips, using his knees and feet to push blindly at the fabric, but the side effect of this strategy distracts him from finishing. They both moan as their erections rub together from Levi’s squirming, and Eren decides to finish the job for him. His pants fall onto the dusty floor, and Levi doesn’t so much as blink at him for it.

Eren is entirely bare, but Levi isn’t. Levi’s body has been hidden from him for so long, and now the time has finally arrived; Levi’s body is now his to reveal. As Eren’s hands rise to remove the final layer and he begins sliding Levi’s shirt down his arms, Levi pushes himself up again to watch, and that mesmerizing look is still on his face. Levi twists to fling his shirt onto the floor to join the rest of their clothes, and Eren’s eyes flit back to the strange thing he saw before.

There are black lines on Levi’s chest. Lots of them. He distinguishes two of the shapes right away—cottonwood leaves, which he recognizes because they look like hearts. And flowers–even without color, he knows what they are because they’re his favorite. Stars within stars. Forget-Me-Not. The rest of the markings are just strange patterns to him. Some of them look like letters, perhaps, but they don’t spell anything, and others are only curving lines or dots.

Levi catches him staring, and though he sees the curiosity in Eren’s eyes, he volunteers nothing. Eren, as always, does not get the hint, and since Levi had failed to sate his obvious curiosity, Eren assumes it’s Levi who hadn’t gotten it.

“You have... tattoos?” Eren asks as his eyes follow his fingertip as it traces the largest of the mysterious arrangements of black ink, turning his gaze up to Levi’s face when he’s reached the end of it.

“Mm.” Levi dismisses him with a hum. He knew there was a possibility that Eren might see them someday, but, truthfully, he knew better than to give himself false hope of that ever happening. At least under these circumstances, which, no matter how unattainable of a dream it was, he always, always hoped and prayed he’d one day get to experience. And he also knew that if he was alive when Eren saw them, Eren would absolutely insist on asking him a million questions about them. Questions that he doesn’t want to answer right now.

He can’t answer, and Eren can’t ask if neither of them can talk.

But that’s not the only reason his lips are on Eren’s. That’s not why he’s holding Eren’s face in his hands and kissing him dizzy. And it’s not that he refuses to talk to Eren about the ink in his skin, and that’s not why he wants to shut him up. Yes, he knows that he is making Eren wait again, but it isn’t the only thing he’s making him wait for. There’s something more important than the pictures on his chest, and it absolutely cannot wait any longer because he’s been waiting for it just as long as Eren has.

He’s been waiting to worship him. To thank him.

To become one with him.

So, as he leaves Eren needy and panting after the kiss he’d grown more skilled at giving, he prostrates himself before his beloved, chanting a hymn of eternal love and gratitude, breathing praise onto his skin hot as smoldering resin, an offering of rarest incense, smoke rising to the heavens. A vow comes from his mouth; his teeth write his promise in Eren’s smooth, overheated flesh. 

Devout hands and lips drag down the trembling body beneath him that arches and whimpers with every lick and nip and kiss. Levi is thorough in his veneration, leaving not an inch of golden chest unworshipped. His worship overwhelms Eren, and the boy is left writhing and babbling and grasping at him before he’s reached the font; before he’s knelt at the altar.

Levi’s kisses quicken as he approaches, and he’s thrown his meticulousness aside for now, too hungry for more, too desperate to abstain; he will repent for his sin of greed a thousand times over. He won’t be satisfied until Eren is satisfied, and even then, he still won’t stop. He places a kiss on Eren’s navel; Eren inhales sharply and reaches out for his hands, eyes closed as his abdomen convulses, and when Levi resumes his descent, it’s with Eren’s fingers laced with his, squeezing.

He inhales deeply as he traces the line of hair below Eren’s navel with the tip of his nose, nuzzling into the thick of it when he reaches the end. He breathes in Eren’s scent and becomes drunk on his masculinity, and he has to fight back the primal urge it awakened in him. After one last shuddering breath, he lifts his face, and he can still smell the intoxicating musk as he locks eyes with Eren and wraps unassertive fingers around Eren’s rigid length.

Even though the chastity of the previous action is notably absent in this one, the touch has the same effect as their first kiss. They gasp and stare, shot through with emotion and sensation, struck again with the force of realization. This is where they are now. Their relationship has changed, and their longings have been fulfilled. Finally. _Finally._

They’re about to make love.

And so, with a deep and shuddering breath, Levi bows his head in supplication and opens his mouth to receive the sacrament.

The flesh is salty on his tongue, and what Eren gives him is sweet and thick as honey. He laps it off, but more follows, so he opens wide to swallow everything he’s given.

Levi finds that this, too, differs from his fantasies. It’s more awkward than he imagined it would be, more difficult to do than he assumed. It’s so big that it barely fits. Levi strains to accommodate his girth, jaw widening to its very limit as he attempts to take him in; his teeth scrape him, and the inflexible lines of scar tissue itch as his lips stretch to encircle him. It is magnificent.

As magnificent as the look on Eren’s face.

He locks eyes with Eren and holds him steady, ready to take on the challenge. With a slow downward stroke, he retracts Eren’s foreskin, breathes in through his nose, closes his eyes, and lowers his head.

Eren’s glans is smoother than silk sliding along his tongue, and it briefly swells wider before Levi reaches his limit. He gets the reflexive urge to cough when Eren dribbles out more of that thick, sweet nectar that tickles the back of his throat as it runs down. Levi squeezes his eyes closed and takes several deep breaths to fight back the urge, but when he tries to swallow, Eren gives him more.

He wants more, and he wonders: Is this just as different from what Eren imagined, too?

Eren can’t answer that. 

He can’t answer because he’s wailing in pleasure, but also because he can’t remember–he can’t even remember his own name.

Nothing he’s done to himself has ever felt like this. Not even close.

Eren’s back arches off the bed, and shimmering lights explode behind his eyes. He can’t see anything, and he can’t hear himself shouting; the only thing that exists is the hot, wet, tight mouth enveloping his cock, the soft tongue flexing against it, the strong, small hand on his hip holding him steady, and the other one squeezing his shaft. His voice was so loud that he didn’t hear Levi’s moan, but he sure as fuck felt it. It happens again the same way–a chain reaction of noise and vibration that Eren wishes would sustain itself forever. The third time it happens, he hears Levi, and Eren comes to the startling realization that he might make it to the fourth, but he’s definitely not going to get a fifth.

The next time Levi pulls his head back, he sucks.

“Fuck!” Eren shouts, which was the wrong thing to do because it made Levi moan around him again, but he can’t remember any other words, and he’s sure Levi would not be happy about being made to swallow, so all he can think to do is try to squirm himself out of Levi’s mouth and blindly tap on Levi’s hand. It is imperative that he keep his eyes closed; he knows that if he opens them, he’s going to see Levi looking at him like _that;_ gaze dark and heavy with arousal, drool running down his chin, and his cock sliding in and out of his mouth. “Fu–fuck, Levi! Levi, ah, sh–shit! I’m gonna–it’s gonna get in your mouth!”

Levi pulls off, but not all at once; he sucks, dragging his lips up Eren’s length so torturously slow that Eren whines and his thighs tense until Levi finally reaches the end, and it pops out of his mouth with the filthiest of sounds. Eren looks down at him, panting hard, and Levi is looking up and doing the same with Eren’s cock resting against his cheek. 

“Let it.”

“Wha–Levi? Ah!” Eren keens when Levi sinks his mouth onto him again, and he doesn’t stop moaning and whining when Levi returns to working him with his lips and tongue and hand, sucking harder, bobbing faster–he doesn’t stop because he can’t. Levi pulls a new sound out of him with every suck, and a few seconds later, he pulls something else out of him.

Eren’s body goes taut as a bowstring; his jaw clenches hard. An immense pleasure swells in his belly until it explodes into hot sparks of glimmering white light with a flash so bright it blinds him, and he releases with a shout so loud that it leaves his throat raw.

Levi nearly chokes again when semen hits the back of his throat. He isn’t sure what to do; take him deeper to let it spurt directly down his throat, or pull back to gather it into his mouth? Instinct chooses him–the latter–though Eren’s bucking hips seem intent on overruling this decision. Levi holds him still as he finishes, instinct again demanding him to pull off entirely, but he tells it to fuck off, and he takes every single drop Eren gives him.

It’s weird. Extremely weird. He’s imagined this before, too, and again, fantasy and reality are nothing alike. Eren’s seed is thick and hot–that much he expected–but everything else is a surprise. Levi wasn’t sure what it was going to taste like, but he didn’t expect it to taste like this; a little sweet like the fluid he tasted before, but mostly salty. And bitter. It’s so slippery, and there’s so goddamn much of it, but the way it coats his mouth makes it difficult to swallow. Regardless, Levi gulps down as much of it as he can.

Eren might be dead.

Everything is black in between blinding flashes of white, and Eren’s certain he’s not in his body anymore–all he is now is a weightless, floating spirit drifting off into the euphoric warmth of the ether. 

But his lungs are still there because he can feel them burning, which means he’s breathing– _barely_ –so that’s probably not the case. Eren tries to open his eyes, and he does so, though with much difficulty, and that confirms it. He’s alive, and he’s looking at Levi hovering over his spent cock, sweaty at the temples, red in the cheeks and panting through pink, swollen lips that are glazed with a thin coating of something whitish and translucent, a small amount of the same substance oozing from the corner and slowly running down his chin.

He’d survived his first blowjob but soon learns that the aftermath is where the actual danger lies. 

But, as always, Levi is there to pull him back from the brink of death, and he does it with a word.

“Fuck,” Levi rasps, and to Eren’s surprise and delight, he doesn’t sound angry; he sounds amazed. Eren sighs in relief and trembles.

Levi’s eyes flit between Eren’s face and his softening cock lying on his stomach. His tongue darts out to inspect what’s causing the itching sensation at the corner of his mouth, not even realizing that he’s doing it until he sees Eren’s expression change with a pathetic whimper from wonderment to pain, his brow knit and his teeth digging into his bottom lip so hard he thinks it might draw blood. Why is Eren looking at him like that? Levi’s mind reminds him that his face still feels funny–there’s something on it. That explains it. He smirks, feeling rather pleased with himself, and wipes the rest from his chin with the back of his hand.

Levi forgets the taste in his mouth but remembers the soreness in his jaw when he rises from his knees to crawl over Eren’s supine jelly-puddle of a body and finds that they’re sore, too, loudly complaining about the hardness of the surface he’d subjected them to. He makes a note to do it on the bed next time and continues his prowl over Eren until he’s poised directly above him, staring down at him with unsated hunger and just a touch of mischief. Eren’s eyes widen just before Levi abruptly swoops down to kiss him on his already parted lips.

Eren tastes himself on Levi’s tongue, and something down below finds this discovery very interesting. It’s even more interested in finding out if Levi tastes the same.

Eren turns his head to speak, but Levi’s lips immediately chase after him. Their kisses are starting to change; all are lighting the same fire in his belly, but each feels slightly different from the last. Still sloppy, but less so–their faces stay mostly dry now. Their noses haven’t smashed into each other for a while, and neither have their teeth. The longer kisses don’t give him a crick in his neck anymore, and somehow it feels like there’s more room in their mouths. Their tongues are still stubbornly fighting with each other, but Eren chalks that one up to mutual enthusiasm.

The longer Eren kisses Levi, the less his mouth tastes like semen, and the less Eren tastes himself, the hungrier he gets for Levi. Despite his immense enjoyment, eventually, Eren’s desire grows too intense to resist and forces him to break the kiss. He pushes against Levi’s chest, but Levi resists–Eren’s not weak by any stretch of the imagination, but even though he’s bigger than Levi, his strength is outmatched.

Eren hasn’t heard anyone use the epithet in ages, but now he’s reminded of it, and it makes the situation even more mind-blowing. Levi–Captain Levi–is not just his commanding officer, he’s Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, and he’s kissing him. He’s going to have Humanity’s Strongest Soldier’s cock in his mouth. _He’s going to fuck Humanity’s Strongest Soldier._

Holy _shit._

Eren’s strength surges in his excitement and sheer fucking delight at being here in bed with the man of his dreams who could have anyone he wanted but chose him. And only him, as he was staggered to learn. He’s staggered again by realizing that he’d actually toppled Levi off of him. Levi was fighting back. He’d just fucking conquered Humanity’s Strongest, and he suddenly can’t remember why he did it.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Levi growled in irritation when Eren shoved him off, and he isn’t sure why it made his heart race and his cock twitch; he doesn’t know why being manhandled all of a sudden by the ballsy little shit he’s head-over-heels in love with got him so hot and bothered. Just as he’s preparing to pounce on him again to win back his title, Eren says something that changes his mind.

“I wanna do that to you, too.”

Anything Eren asks of him, Levi won’t refuse; he’d steal a star from the heavens just to make him smile. Anything Eren wants, no matter what, it’s his. Besides, this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. He’s masturbated so many times to the image of Eren going down on him; he wouldn’t have refused his request in the first place. Levi acquiesces without need of further convincing and rolls onto his back. Levi has never been in such a position before, either by force or otherwise, and yet, here he is, completely exposed and offering himself to Eren to do with as he pleases. He’s vulnerable, but not defenseless, but he has nothing to defend against; he would never surrender control and do it willingly, let alone enthusiastically to anyone else but Eren, and Eren knows this.

Likewise, Levi knows more than anything that Eren would never submit to anyone, and not even he could force him into anything, not even with a gun to his head–as if that would do anything. Levi then understands that everything Eren’s done, he’s done of his own free will, and though knowing this won’t make him stop seeking his permission, it’s reassuring nonetheless. 

But there’s another thing he knows about Eren, and that is that he charges headfirst into everything, and he usually does it without thinking. That’s why Levi is confused about why Eren is kneeling at his feet, staring instead of immediately trying to shove his entire cock in his mouth.

For once in his life, Eren has some self-control. It wasn’t easy to hold himself back, but realizing how incredibly amazing and special and _big_ this is convinced him to take it slow. He wants to savor this moment. To treasure it. To commit it to memory instead of rushing through it. He’s waited for this for so long that he feared it would never happen, not just that he wouldn’t live to see it, but that Levi would never accept or return his feelings or that Levi never had any feelings for him at all.

But he does. Levi _loves_ him. 

Levi is getting restless. He’ll wait as long as Eren needs. He’ll wait for Eren forever–he’s already waited this long. He just hopes Eren will be ready soon because the tension is driving him crazy, and he hasn’t come this far only to jerk himself off before he’s gotten to feel Eren’s hands on him. It seems someone heard his prayers because Eren’s hands are on him only a few seconds later. _Thank fuck._

“Levi,” Eren breathes as he begins smoothing his hands up Levi’s thighs, his bright eyes sweeping across his body in an awkward and anxious quest to decide whether he should take in everything at once, pick one thing at a time to look at or to look at Levi’s face instead of his junk. He’s not just a piece of meat to him, it’s just that… He should tell him. Levi’s face it is. “You’re beautiful.”

Levi only grunts in response to the compliment, and when he turned his head away with what he intended to be a disapproving frown, Eren saw it for what it was: an embarrassed pout. 

As Eren continues to marvel at Levi in all his naked, erect glory, he remains determined to take it slow and not just go right for the prize, but there’s something in front of him begging for him to do the opposite. He realizes his mistake; he’s been taking it too slow, and now he feels a little guilty for ignoring its pleas. Levi must be so uncomfortable. He decides to compromise–he still won’t rush this, but he will have some mercy on Levi and speed things up a bit.

“I love you,” Eren says, and he bows his head to press a long, reverential kiss beside Levi’s hip bone that makes the older man shiver. Slowly, Eren raises his head to look into Levi’s eyes, not intending to keep the man waiting, only to seek his permission. Levi’s eyes are wide, his face and chest are flushed, and his expression is pained. 

“Eren, I love you, too, but could you please just–” Levi’s desperate, tense-jawed plea is interrupted by a groan when Eren grants it before he’s finished asking for him to touch him. He doesn’t get exactly what he wanted; all Eren did was wrap his hand around his cock and nothing else, but that was enough to take the edge off the ache. It’s strange, though. He’s not stroking it or sucking it; all Eren’s doing is loosely holding it and staring at it, so how can it feel this good? 

Eren gasps when he feels him for the first time. He’s in awe of what he’s seeing, and he can’t look away from it. He’s touching Captain Levi’s penis. He’s holding it in his hand, and it’s warm and smooth and pink and just the right size–and it’s really fucking hard. He cautiously squeezes it, and it responds; it swells from base to tip with enough force to fight against his grip. And Levi… Levi _moaned._ Levi _wants_ this. 

Eren, amazed beyond belief, spares Levi another quick glance to make sure it’s okay to do this. Levi is biting his lip, and his fists are clenched at his sides–he looks like he’s about to cry. Eren swallows a few leftover butterflies, tightens his grip, and moves his hand in his first slow, shaky stroke. He can feel every wild pulsation against his palm while he watches his hand move along Levi, takes his time memorizing the sight of himself sliding Levi’s foreskin up and then back down again, recording the sound of Levi’s breaths and moans to play back when he’s touching himself, though hopefully, he won’t need to do that as often anymore now that he finally has the real thing. Once more, Eren stops.

 _He has the real thing._ Levi is _his._ He’s _Levi’s._ And this–this can’t be just a one-time thing. It _can’t._ He’s sure of it. Levi told him he loved him. He asked him to be his. He and Levi are… together. He's Levi's partner. It’s finally… they’re finally… 

Levi makes a sound indicating that he is not at all pleased, but it goes right over Eren’s head. He sighs when he opens his eyes to figure out what the fuck the problem is this time. Eren’s staring at his dick with that stupid look on his face again. He’ll endure it. It’s cute. _Cute? Did I just…?_

“Eren,” Levi groans, and it succeeds in getting his attention, but it fails to get Eren to keep going. It still feels good just being held, but after that teasing stroke Eren gave him, waiting for another is torture. “Stop staring at it.” 

“S-sorry, Captain,” Eren apologizes, and it’s such a trained response that he doesn’t realize he keeps–

“Eren, you’ve got your hand on my penis. I’m pretty sure you can drop the ‘captain’ now.” Levi’s sarcasm does nothing to disguise the desperate edge to his words. An uninvited thought pops into his head. Levi hopes Eren understood that it’s the title he wants Eren to drop. Eren better not have taken that to mean that he calls his dick “the captain”–that would be just as bad as him dropping _the captain_. Levi shakes away the concern but makes another displeased sound when Eren sasses him back.

“Yes, sir,” Eren says, giving Levi a challenging look that Levi rolls his eyes at. Eren knows Levi can dish it out, and he loves exchanging quips with him, but now is not the time for that, so he avoids giving Levi an opening to snap back.

Eren’s stared at it enough, and besides, he can still picture it clearly in his mind without having to look, so now he keeps his eyes locked with Levi’s. He holds Levi’s cock steady, leans in just so, opens his mouth–Levi better not look away–sticks out his tongue, and…

Eren was entranced by how smooth and shiny it looked, and it feels better on his tongue than he imagined it would. The face Levi makes when he laps at him, the sound he makes, the way he tastes, the way he smells, everything–even his wildest, most uninhibited dreams couldn’t conjure such perfection. Levi is sublime, everything about him, foul mouth, scars, bad jokes, neuroses and all–nothing, not a single thing in the universe compares to him, and no joy Eren has ever felt holds a candle to the overwhelming elation Levi’s love has brought him. He doesn’t know how he could ever possibly thank him enough for it, but he’s got a decent idea for how to start.

Eren keeps eye contact until he can’t anymore. He wraps his lips around Levi and, in one slow, steady descent, he takes him all the way in.

Levi knew Eren would try something like this. He’s not complaining, though. He’s not doing anything besides trying not to come. He’d imagined a lot of things, but he never imagined that it would be this intense. His imagination sucks. Now that it's failed to adequately prepare him for how good all of this was going to feel, Levi is both excited and afraid of all the other things they’re going to do together. If Eren’s mouth feels this much better in real life than it did in his fantasies, what will his ass feel like? Levi fears he may not survive if it’s going to be that good.

Eren is going at it with all the fiery passion and determination that Levi’s loved since the moment he first met him, taking him in deeper than he was able to, sucking louder, harder, faster. And every time he opens his eyes, he finds Eren’s staring right back at him with such zeal that it makes him shiver with thrill, and the pressure at the base of his spine climbs higher with every heated look they share. When Eren’s hand retracts his foreskin with a single long, teasing stroke and switches from sliding him down his throat to licking and sucking at his frighteningly sensitive frenulum, the pressure doesn’t just climb–it soars.

“Shit!” Levi hisses, his eyes snapping open in a panic when he feels his climax rushing toward him, and Eren’s eyes flit up in curiosity at the urgency he hears in his curse. He can’t come yet. Eren’s still young, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem for him to get it up again. Levi, on the other hand, is not. If Levi comes now, he will not bounce back so quickly, and like hell if he’s going to wait any longer to get inside Eren than he already has.

“You need to stop,” Levi warns, panting and sweaty, and he also needs to stop–he can’t breathe. Levi does everything he can to calm himself. He tries closing his eyes, taking deep breaths–as deep as he can, at least–gritting his teeth, clenching his muscles, and it helps head off his imminent orgasm long enough to explain his motive for telling him to stop. “I’m not coming like this.”

When Levi scoots back to remove the temptation for both of them, Eren is left kneeling right where he is, looking so adorable with that combination of concern and annoyance on his face. He’s both confused about why Levi didn’t want to come by getting his dick sucked and miffed that Levi took it away from him. Levi’s hand runs through his hair, and he closes his eyes as he releases one last long, unsteady breath. Ever the impatient brat, Eren doesn’t wait the two seconds of recovery Levi needed before he could give him an explanation on his own.

“You didn’t like it? Was I doing it wrong?” Eren scrunches his brow and purses his lips, tossing out wrong guess after wrong guess, and if he’d just shut up for one goddamn minute, he’d– “Is it because you don’t want to come in my mouth? Is that what you meant by ‘like this’?” 

“Eren,” Levi says, trying to get him to stop talking long enough for him to explain. Eren must’ve missed the sliver of warning in his tone because he interrupts him again.

“Because you don’t have to worry about that. Seriously, I’m dying to taste your come.”

Eren just outright admitting that makes it harder for Levi to ignore how much he wants to let him do just that, but his dream of finally being able to fuck Eren makes him come to his senses before he gives in to the temptation of getting right back in front of Eren and shoving his cock in his mouth. He clears his throat before his second attempt at getting Eren to shut up and pay attention.

“Eren, would you just–” Eren’s surprised gasp is what interrupts Levi this time, and the new look on his face is interesting enough to keep him from shouting over him.

“Wait,” Eren whispers, bowled-over by his sudden awareness. His wide, unblinking eyes dart up to meet Levi’s, filled with hope that he’s reached the correct conclusion and the amazement of thinking that he had. “Does… does that mean…?”

“I want to fuck you.” 

“Oh,” Eren breathes, still staring with eyes like round, brilliant emeralds. A tremor runs through him as his posture softens, his jaw drops slightly, and then he finally blinks. His cheeks redouble their flush, and he swallows against his dry tongue, struggling to wet it enough to form words. Eren closes his eyes as he speaks, an unexplainable look of pleasure settling on his face as a deep groan spills out along with his words. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you saying that. God, I’ve wanted this for so long. I want it so bad. Fuck, Levi, I love you so much.”

The words steal Levi’s breath and stop his heart, so affected by Eren’s confession that he finds himself frozen in place, unable to do anything but stare until the shock wears off. Eren’s feather-light touch on his skin feels like an electric shock and jolts his idle body back to life in an instant. Levi surges forward with such speed that it startles Eren, and he’s upon him so quickly that Levi catches Eren’s reaction with his mouth, and he swallows Eren’s sweet squeak of surprise.

“Back on the bed,” Levi pants, breathing the words over Eren’s supple, compliant lips. Eren’s obedient nod is fettered by the small hands that had forgotten they held his head in place. Levi is in such a hurry that he releases him with a little too much force, practically pushing him away by his face, a careless action for which Levi feels deeply sorry but which Eren seemed to enjoy. Regardless, Levi takes Eren by the face once more and kisses him on the forehead in apology, which Eren accepts with a small, contented hum and a matching smile. When he releases Eren this time, he’s much more careful about it. “I’ll be right back.”

Eren’s up and ready again. He has been for a while, actually–his erection sprung back to life the instant he felt Levi’s on his tongue–yet Levi’s absence has the opposite effect he thought it would have on it. It isn’t receding from not being able to see the architect of his arousal in front of him anymore. Instead, it’s hardening because he’s imagining Levi naked, knowing that he’s just around the corner, and in a few minutes, he’s going to take his virginity.

This isn’t like the other times Eren’s lain naked on his bed with his cock sticking straight up at the ceiling, picturing Levi in the same state of undress and about to do the same thing. Now that it’s happening, it’s somehow even more agonizing, though in a different way than before. Truth be told, this isn’t exactly how he imagined their first time would go. Sure, there were still sweet confessions, hungry kisses, and Captain Levi’s penis in his mouth. But there aren’t any rose petals on the bed or ink spilled on Commander Erwin’s desk, there’s no soft grass tickling his back after their horseback ride into the sunset, nor any of the other embarrassingly romantic or laughably indecent, testosterone-fuelled scenarios he’d constructed in his head for them, sometimes at the most inappropriate of times. But that’s okay. Somehow, this is fitting. It feels right. As long as it’s with Levi, it’s perfect, and no matter how it happens, it’s all he ever wanted and more.

Eren allows himself a few innocuous strokes to take the edge off his discomfort while he tries to shift from imagining what they’re about to do to focus on the sound of Levi rummaging around in the bathroom. When the noise of drawers opening and unknown items clattering and falling to the floor stops and is replaced by the quick slap of bare feet on stone, Eren curses under his breath and opens his eyes. _Thank fuck._

Even though this is what Levi planned on doing if Eren returned his feelings–he’ll never admit to what he might've done in the event that Eren rejected him–somehow, he’d managed to overlook this one not-at-all-minor and absolutely crucial element: Lubrication. Though, in hindsight, it would’ve looked mighty suspicious if Eren noticed that he’d shown up on the beach carrying a bottle of oil that he’d have no rational explanation for needing to have with him.

Levi will have to thank his lucky stars for providing them with a suitable substitute. He’d frantically searched the bathroom for any kind of slippery substance that could be safely utilized for intimate purposes, and, just as he was giving up hope of finally getting to consummate their brand-new, years-old relationship, there appeared before him a gift from the heavens. A jar of some type of solid, waxy-looking stuff, and he almost– _almost_ –discarded it as useless. By chance, Levi decided to open it, and when he stuck his finger in to examine it, he nearly fell to his knees in thanks. Whatever it was made of was odorless and quickly melted under the heat of his fingertips, and when he rubbed it between them, they slid smoothly together.

Levi snatched it up, and damn-near sprinted back to the bed without even bothering to put the lid back on.

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Eren sat up on the bed when Levi returned, and the first thing he noticed was how strange Levi’s face looked. The second thing he noticed was the jar in Levi’s hand. As his eyes flit back and forth between the two, understanding begins to dawn. When Eren recognizes what he sees in Levi’s expression, his gaze finally settles on Levi’s face and stays there, and they stare at each other for a moment. Eren hasn’t seen it very many times before, and that’s why it seemed so strange to see what he thought he saw in Levi’s eyes just now, but now he’s confident that’s what it is–it’s fear.

His captain is afraid. 

But Eren still remembers every time he’s seen that unsettlingly raw look in his brave captain’s eyes, and all of those instances had one thing in common: he was in danger, and Levi was worried. Eren knows exactly what to do now. He wets his lips, gathers himself, and speaks.

“I want you, Levi.” 

Levi huffs. Blinks. Blinks again. Looks into Eren’s warm eyes and whispers, “Are you sure?” He watches the smile form on Eren’s face before he leans back on his elbows and spreads himself out invitingly on the bed, and then, with darkening eyes, Eren’s demure smile takes on a sinful edge, and he parts his lips to say,

“Come and take me.”

And that’s all the encouragement Levi needs.

The jar is tossed to the side in his haste to have his mouth on Eren’s as quickly as possible. They both moan into the kiss, and their bodies both tremble as their hands find each other’s faces. Eren feels Levi’s hardness rub against his stomach when their bodies press together, and he tosses his head back with a groan, exposing his throat to Levi, who accepts the generous offering with relish, latching his lips there with a suck so harsh that it makes Eren’s body arch and his thighs shake.

Eren remembers this time. The mark stays.

“Love you,” Levi pants over and over in between frantic sucks and kisses. 

Aside from during battle, Eren’s never seen Levi in such a frenzy before, mumbling nonsense into his skin, aimlessly planting his restless lips anywhere he can reach. 

He’s never been the one to have to calm _Levi_ down. 

Eren counters Levi’s frantic movements with slow, soothing strokes of his hands and soft, hushed sounds. He combs through his hair, caresses his sides, rubs up and down his back, trying to think of something to say. He doesn’t mind the attention at all, and it’s incredibly flattering to see Levi so worked up with desire for him, but if Levi keeps rolling his hips like that… 

“I love you too.” Those are the words Eren decided on, and the calming tone he uses combined with his fingers unhurriedly tracing over Levi’s ears is all it took to make Levi settle down and melt into him. The only thing that isn’t calm now is Eren’s dick, and while he’d be happy to just lie here beneath Levi forever, he’d still really like to shut up the nag trapped between them.

But it’s not an orgasm Eren wants; it’s his man. His heart is aching to become one with Levi–always has been–and he can’t wait any longer. Eren doesn’t care how needy he sounds. He needs this, and it’s clear that Levi does, too. He wraps his legs around his waist to encourage him and then whispers into his ear. “Fuck me.”

Whatever Eren asks for, Levi will give him. Anything, everything–it’s his. Levi kisses him softly on the cheek, and Eren unwinds himself so that Levi can maneuver their bodies until they’re comfortably lateral with the mattress. Levi sits on his heels to gaze lovingly down at him, at his winter Eren, the one with the long, dirty hair and the dull eyes, the one with all the greenery stripped from him, with a heart laid to rubble by a lifetime of war. 

He loves this Eren, and that’s why he’s doing this–that’s why he’s never going to see him again. He’s disappearing already–the ice in his eyes has melted away, and he can see new life awakening just beneath the surface. The branches are barren, but the roots run deep–Levi won’t let them dry up and wither away. He ducks down for one more kiss and then reaches for the jar. Eren eagerly watches his fingers dip into the container and rub around inside, and it feels to both of them like Levi's taking two-thousand years to gather up enough of the melted substance to coat them thoroughly. 

Eren holds his breath with his eyes locked on Levi’s glistening fingertips, and as they come to rest at the apex of his thighs, Levi whispers something to him that makes his body burn like wildfire.

“Spread your legs.”

Eren’s legs feel like wet noodles when he tries to move them, but he regains his strength enough to slide his feet back and bend his knees. He keeps his eyes on Levi while he parts them as wide as he can, shamelessly putting himself on display for him. He doesn’t have much time to feel smug about how it made Levi’s cock twitch because the next thing he knows, Levi’s slippery fingers are pressing against his asshole. He didn’t even see Levi move, and he’s a little embarrassed about how he shouted in surprise, but seeing how turned on Levi looked in response kinda makes him want to do it again.

The embarrassment from making such a stupid sound is long gone, and a new type of bashfulness has taken its place. Eren’s cheeks turned beet-red once he realized that Levi wasn’t just rubbing his asshole; he was _staring_ at it. He’s gotten off to imagining this hundreds of times before, and he never remembers being embarrassed in any of those late-night (or early morning, or sometimes mid-afternoon) fantasies. So now that it’s actually happening, he’s suddenly shy about it? But judging by the nonstop stream of pre-ejaculate oozing out of Levi, Levi looks to be enjoying himself very much, so that definitely helps him feel less insecure about it.

That is until Levi sticks his finger in his ass.

They both curse from the same mixture of surprise and arousal when Eren clenches around it. Eren honestly wasn’t expecting Levi to do that; he’d assumed real-life Levi would be too squeamish about having his fingers in there and was only trying to lubricate it. 

Admittedly, it does feel amazing, but… Levi’s finger is in his ass, and even though he’s been thinking about it the entire time, he’s only now remembering how sex works and trying not to freak out because what he _can’t_ remember is if he–

“Shit,” Levi hisses, and Eren goes lightheaded for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut when Levi winces, but then Levi keeps talking, and Eren thinks Levi sounds like he’s in pain until the words register to him. “You feel really fucking good in here.”

 _Oh._ But, still…

“You don’t have to do that,” Eren mumbles, but Levi’s just stuck a second one in, and he’s not sure what to do or how to feel about the amazed look on Levi’s face. Or the way Levi groans whenever he pulls his fingers out and he unconsciously clenches around them. Or about why he keeps tilting his hips for more.

“I’m trying to help. It’s going to hurt if I don’t open you up,” Levi states plainly, both because he thinks that’s how this is supposed to go and because he really doesn’t want to take his fingers out yet. 

“No it’s not,” Eren argues because he knows it won’t. He sizes up Levi’s cock just to be sure before continuing. “I know what I can take.”

Levi’s hand ceases its movements, and he looks up at Eren with an expression that can’t make up its mind. He looks simultaneously annoyed, confused, and unconvinced, but then, just before he speaks, his expression changes to something that jabs a knife right into Eren’s heart. Levi looks crestfallen. 

“This isn’t your first time?” Levi averts his eyes, taken aback by his unexpected reaction. He kicks himself for asking, and his fingers slip out of Eren’s ass. Eren reaches for his bad hand, and he lets him take it, but he’s not ready to look at him until he’s sure he’s not making an embarrassing face. 

“It _is_ my first time. You honestly think I’d have sex with someone who wasn’t you?” Eren squeezes the two fingers on Levi’s right hand, and Levi’s still looking away from him when he rubs his cheek against them and then kisses them. “I’ve never had feelings for anyone else. You’re the first. I’ve only ever wanted you.”

Eren sounds sincere, and when Levi meets his eyes again, he looks it, too.

“Then how do you–”

“How do I know? Levi, I’ve been getting off to this since I was fifteen years old. I’ve had sex with you so many times.” One more thing that Eren never imagined was that he’d be telling Captain Levi he’d been masturbating to him since they first met. Has he no shame? Or, at the very least, survival instinct? Well, since the cat’s already out of the bag… “Levi,” he says, dropping Levi’s hand and wiggling his fingers in front of him, “I’d like you to meet Levi.”

Levi stares at him dumbfoundedly for the few seconds it takes for him to understand what Eren means.

“Fucking Sina, Eren.” Levi can’t decide if he should laugh or cry or admit that he’d done the same thing for almost as long.

“Please don’t make me wait any longer for this. I’ve wanted this so bad. I’m dying to have you inside me.” _And I might actually die if it’s not inside me in the next ten seconds._ “I’ll be fine. I promise.” _Even if you are a bit bigger than what I've practiced with._

“Fine, but you’re in charge of putting it in, and you’re going to stop if it hurts.”

“Is that an order, sir?” Eren cocks his eyebrow playfully at Levi, who looks like he’s just shy of kicking him off the bed, and he probably would if his cock didn’t look like it was about to turn purple.

“Eren, just get on my cock already.” _Little shit._

As soon as those words are said, their playfulness fades away, and a solemn silence falls upon them. The mood heavies with awareness, and there’s one last moment of hesitation before they take that final step together.

“Alright,” Eren says, voice low and breathy, mouth dry, and with the faintest quiver of nervous excitement in his words, which Levi picks up on immediately. 

Levi swallows as discreetly as he can to conceal his nervous excitement. With a nigh-imperceptible tremor, he brings a hand to Eren’s cheek with a meek smile of reassurance and allows his touch to linger until Eren smiles back. Only once he’s certain of Eren’s consent does Levi slowly lower himself until he’s flat on his back. He watches Eren watching him, and he wants so much to be making love to him finally, but he won’t rush, only encourage. So he says nothing, makes no demands–only beckons Eren to him with a smile and open arms.

Eren keeps his eyes on Levi’s face as he sits up, and once he’s on his knees, he sees Levi look aside and then back. Eren takes the cue and follows Levi’s line of sight, understanding what Levi was trying to tell him when his eyes land on what’s on the bed beside him. So, with a deep breath, Eren takes the jar in his hand. He looks at it for a long while before speaking again.

“Do you want me to…?” Eren asks vaguely, glancing at the open jar in his hand, and again Levi parses his meaning and nods.

“Please,” Levi adds, and his anticipation swells as his eyes are magnetized to the motion of Eren’s fingers rubbing back and forth over the balm inside the jar. Levi silently hopes Eren does this next part quickly and doesn’t stroke him too many times. All the excitement about what’s to come has aroused him so much that he fears he might go over the edge at any moment. Eren’s fingers are glistening with a generous layer of the buttery substance, and Levi’s heart thumps so hard it nearly jumps right out of his chest. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes to calm himself, and then, a heartbeat later, he feels two cool, slick fingers carefully swiping the lubricant up his length.

Eren’s fingers wrap around him, and thankfully his touch is light and careful when his hand twists and strokes until every inch of his penis is thoroughly, if not excessively, covered in oil. Levi opens his eyes and watches Eren set the jar beside them. He nods when Eren meets his eyes again. With his encouragement, Eren bravely moves forward, Levi’s erection bumping into him and dragging between his legs until he’s finally hovering over him.

Levi thoughtfully holds his erection upright and stationary to make insertion easier for Eren and then raises his knees to give Eren something to lean against for support. Both men hold their breath and lick their lips when Eren readies himself over Levi's cock.

Eren doesn’t move yet. As much as he wants to, he also wants to memorize every detail of this monumentally special moment. Eren stares at the man beneath him, and the love he feels for him is so indescribably vast and all-encompassing that it can’t be contained, and it threatens to spill out of him as tears of joy. Levi’s hair is splayed out on the pillow, and when it’s away from his face like this, Eren can see the grey at his temples, and that makes him feel even more like crying.

Levi lived long enough to get grey hair. Long enough to have lines around his eyes and a wrinkle between his brows. He survived everything that might have taken him away forever and walked away with only scars. _And I lived long enough to see it. I lived long enough to hear him say, “I love you.” I lived long enough to love him._ Eren’s eyes fall to the black lines that join the silver and red and pink ones on Levi’s skin, and he wonders what other secrets this precious, mysterious man has waiting for him to discover. 

“Are you ready?” Eren asks, and Levi thinks that he should be the one asking that, but he nevertheless gives Eren the seal of approval to go ahead.

“I’m ready,” Levi assures with a nod and another lick of his dry lips, but as soon as he says it, he realizes he isn’t–he has one more thing to say before they can move forward. “Stop if it’s uncomfortable. I mean it. We’re not doing this if it hurts.”

Eren wants to argue again that it won’t, but that’s not what Levi needs to hear, and, honestly, he isn’t one hundred percent sure it won’t. And so he promises Levi with a nod, and then, trying not to faint, he lowers his body until the head of Levi’s cock touches his entrance.

Levi bites his lip and watches on in awe, enraptured by, enamored with everything about Eren, still reeling in disbelief that this is truly happening. Eren steadies himself with both hands on Levi’s chest, and Levi holds his cock steady while Eren descends and he mentally prepares himself to enter the holiest of holies. 

Everything they do is a mirror of each other; they gasp and widen their eyes in unison, and the only difference is in the sensations they’re experiencing for the first time. 

Levi is shocked by the incredible heat of Eren’s body, and he’s only just begun to breach him, Eren by the heat of what’s not yet fully inside. But Eren wants it in him; they both do, and neither need to wait any longer.

Eren lowers more of his weight and whines with pleasure at the increasing pressure, the plush, swollen head of Levi's cock pushing against the tightness of his entrance, the muscles surrendering to Levi’s girth and stretching wide for him. And it doesn’t hurt–not at all. Eren’s never felt something so pleasurable in his entire life; neither his fingers nor his excruciatingly active imagination had prepared him for this level of ecstasy. Levi’s glans suddenly pops through the fluttering ring of muscles and–and––

And Levi is inside him. The man he loves and trusts and adores is inside him. They’re having sex. He’s _having sex with Levi._

The realization hit like running top-speed into Wall Maria, and now Eren is positive he’s going to faint. All the blood in his brain shot southward, earth-shaking euphoria rising in its place, all the way up until it came barreling out of his mouth as a moan. His mind buzzes with static that seeps through his entire being, and his cock throbs violently when he hears the erotic way Levi moans his name through his clenched teeth.

Levi has the wind knocked out of him; he feels like he’s been kicked in the chest by a mule. He’s hardly more than an inch inside Eren–they’re not even _moving,_ and it already feels this good? Levi’s body is overcome with sensation, but his heart is even more so with emotion. He's never felt so good. So _alive._ He can't believe it. He made it; he– _they_ actually made it. He thought he'd never live to see this moment. To have his dream come true. He'd finally gotten to tell Eren how he's always felt about him, and he'd gotten to hear Eren say it back. He'd gotten to kiss Eren. Somehow, someway, he survived, and here he is, about to make love to the man who has been the center of his universe since they first met. Though his last realization was only a byproduct of all the others hitting him all at once, Levi makes one more awkward yet accurate assessment of the situation before his body takes over and his brain shuts off. 

_Huh. I guess this means I just..._

He wants to drown in Eren's heat, wants to be wholly devoured by this beautiful, miraculous man, wants to be inside him so deep that he fuses with his flesh and they can never exist separately again. Levi is so dizzy. So in love. So caught up in Eren that all he can feel is scorching heat and scalding steam until something happens that snaps him into a cold panic. The titan tightens around him, and his cock pulsates wildly inside his body– _Fuck. I’m gonna blow my load before I’m all the way in. This can’t be happening._

Eren’s body takes over in a desperate hunt for more of that mind-numbing pleasure, and without thinking, he drops his whole weight onto Levi’s cock, and it penetrates him in one go. His mind is running a mile a minute, and in the single heartbeat it took to receive Levi, his body tensed from head to toe, and several things happened consecutively. 

Eren learned that it wasn’t quite as painless as he thought it would be based on his years of practice with "Levi." Levi's cock is far longer and goes way deeper into him than his fingers could. The sudden extreme fullness in his guts was disconcerting, but it wasn’t exactly _painful; it_ didn’t _hurt,_ though it _was_ uncomfortable to take all of him so abruptly. Except, the discomfort was only discomfort right at the start. Once the shock wore off and his insides relaxed around him, it softened into a dull, throbbing ache that actually heightened the already immense pleasure he felt. 

And the pleasure? Oh, fuck, the _pleasure._ He’s delirious with it. Pleasure doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s ecstasy–pure, mind-blowing _euphoria,_ and even those words aren’t quite adequate to describe how good Levi’s cock feels inside him. As a matter of fact, it felt so fucking good that–

“Holy fuck, Eren! Did you just _come?!_ ” 

  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

“Holy fuck, Eren! Did you just _come?!”_ Levi half-shouts just after Eren does, and his hands involuntarily squeeze so hard on Eren’s hips that his nails gouge crescents into the flesh. Eren’s insides are erratically clenching and fluttering around his cock, and Eren’s nails dig into his chest in a similarly random rhythm. Eren’s teeth bite down just as hard on his lip, and his eyes are scrunched closed, and he’s whimpering and convulsing, and Levi has to pull out in a hurry because yes, Eren did actually come, and the proof is still splattering all over his chest.

“S-sorry,” Eren stutters, panting hard and continuing to tremble and convulse, whimpering as his asshole lamentably clenches around nothing, and his apology tapers off into a groan. “You don’t ha—ah! _haah_ —”

Levi doesn't want to distract Eren from enjoying his orgasm, so he quietly watches him ride it out without interrupting–but with his hand wisely squeezing the life out of his cock. In addition to watching it happen, which is beyond arousing on its own, it was an incredible turn-on to realize he'd made Eren come immediately just by entering him. He didn't even think that could _happen._ Add one more thing to their growing list of surprises.

“K-keep… keep going,” Eren begs, eyes closed, fingers and cock both twitching, obviously still in the throes of orgasm. He’s too out of breath to say more than those few words, but he somehow finds enough air to add one more. “Levi, keep going.”

Levi has neither the breath nor the presence of mind to say _any_ words. 

Especially now that Eren’s sitting back down.

Levi sustains the deep groan Eren forces out of him with the still-spasming ring of muscle swallowing his cock, and Eren whines when he’s denied Levi’s full length because Levi blocked his entry by stubbornly refusing to release his death-grip on his penis. There’s no _way_ he–

“Levi,” Eren pleads again, now with a suggestion of frustration in his moans, “keep fucking me.” He’s come down just enough to get his eyes open, though the demanding glare he tries to give Levi looks more pathetic than anything. 

Levi looks down at Eren’s spent cock, still hard but not standing as high, just barely, _barely_ beginning to soften. A small part of him wishes that his would do the same because he’s also secretly harbored some shamefully romantic ideas of his own; he kinda-sorta hoped they would do that together, and he could've joined him, but... He'd also hoped he'd get a few thrusts in first. But didn’t he say he’d give Eren anything he wanted? And besides, based on how insanely fast Eren rebounded from the first one, there’s a promising chance that he could still make that happen.

“How do you want it?” Levi asks, but he growls and grits his teeth when Eren struggles against his hold in an attempt to keep going. “Fuck, Eren, don’t move.” Eren does the same, growling and gritting when Levi holds his hips harder and squirms beneath him until his cock slips out.

“Don’t–ah–don’t care, just want you inside me, just–just put your cock back in me,” Eren pants, slower now, but still trembling, still flushed a deep pink from his ears to his sweaty, heaving chest, and _still_ not flaccid. 

How could Levi possibly refuse such a request? Of course he’ll give it to him.

Holding them both steady with the grip on Eren’s hips, Levi slides out from underneath him, and the trails of semen feel cool running down his chest when he sits up. Levi glances down to look at what he feels, and he chokes back a moan when he sees the shining fluid still dripping down to where most of it pools in his pubic hair, the thick patch of black now mottled with translucent white.

Levi’s hands find new purchase on Eren’s cheeks, and he gazes at Eren’s face for a spell before he kisses him tenderly, long and slow and sweet, the swipes of his tongue soft and undemanding against his lover’s as they inhale the other’s blissful sighs. Unhurriedly, he breaks the kiss, keeping his eyes closed as they gradually part, little by little, ever so slowly, and when he’s far enough away to see him, Levi calmly opens his eyes to see Eren’s looking back at him, shining with joy and glowing with warmth. Eren looks alive–the dormant verdure is sprouting with the first buds of spring.

He’s reminded of how genuinely delicate this boy is–the one with the beast sleeping inside him, the one who’s simmered with bloodthirst since childhood–there’s so much more to him than the monstrous weapon the world sees. His human heart surpasses the ones inside even the most colossal of titans’ chests in size and warmth by innumerable orders of magnitude. If anyone were to bother to look past the exterior, to see him for what he is–not a weapon or an object, not a monster in the way they define it, but a human–they’d see the truth. They’d see it in his eyes–the pain he endures, the burden he bears, all the agony and guilt and sorrow of the decisions he’s been forced to make. 

Every time Levi is reminded of these things, it makes him sick. It makes him seethe with anger, burn with furious rage. It makes him want to run to Eren and tell him it isn’t true; to take him in his arms and hold him, to comfort and protect him and make promises to him that he’ll sign in blood–to _love_ him. 

He promised him. It’s written in his flesh.

He places his right hand over Eren’s heart, and it beats steadily beneath his palm, robust and alive, and though Levi doesn’t know it, it does it for him, and he is the lone reason that it’s continuing to do so now–and Levi’s does the same for Eren. So with that palm soaking up the proof of life, Levi pushes, and Eren obeys the silent command–the silent _request._ Levi lays him down.

This time it’s Levi who dictates the pace. He penetrates Eren with painstaking care, attentive to his comfort, watching Eren’s face for even the most infinitesimal sign of pain, pushing forward slowly, steadily, the movement of every muscle in his body measured and deliberate–he’s going to do this right. As Levi enters him deeper, Eren’s body welcomes him gladly, pulling him in, eagerly opening up to receive him until Levi is fully seated in the snug, exquisite heat inside him. 

Eren moans and clings to him, and Levi’s body is screaming for him to move, to thrust into that perfect, willing body, to seek his pleasure in Eren’s tight, inviting passage. Levi denies his body, rebuffs his primal instinct to mount and fuck and spill his seed–Eren is to be savored and cherished. Orgasms come cheap; making love to the man he reveres and treasures and absolutely fucking adores above all else is a rare privilege not to be taken lightly. 

“Hurt?” Levi asks after giving Eren a few moments to adjust, though not to rush him. Levi sees no indication of pain on Eren’s features, but he does make out a tension that suggests discomfort. Eren vehemently shakes his head no, but Eren’s stupid, obvious, longstanding desire to please him makes Levi question Eren’s denial. “You look uncomfortable.”

“Fuck, Levi, I look uncomfortable because I’m still really goddamn horny, and I might pass out if you don’t start fucking me soon.” Eren wiggles his rear for emphasis, and he groans because it just felt like Levi somehow got wider inside him. He shifts around more, and he jolts when the angle changes just enough for Levi’s cock to put pressure on his swollen and unexpectedly sensitive prostate. That’s new. 

“ _Ohmygod,_ ” Eren exclaims, eyes shooting open in surprise as he exhales the words as a single string of rushed syllables. “Oh my god, shit, right there, stay right there!” 

Eren asked him to stay right there, and he did, so why does Eren seem so pissed off at him? 

“Fuck, Levi, move!” Eren demands, the exasperated shout accompanied by a fist pounding on the side of Levi’s arm. 

Eren’s desperation is making Levi want to rush again, and it’s harder to resist this time because Eren’s ass is clamping down on him to demand more pressure, and Eren’s tilting hips are begging for more friction. It takes Levi every last ounce of his restraint, but he does it–he keeps his first real thrust slow and stops after one. Just a gradual, easy withdrawal, and then a long, controlled push back in. Eren was evidently very amenable to the action, and loudly, so Levi gives him another careful, experimental thrust. The second one satisfied Eren enough to get him to cease his whining and replace it with moaning.

“Feel okay?” Levi asks halfway through the third, and Eren answers with his eyes closed, his lip between his teeth, and his toes curling against Levi’s leg; just a meek little whine of _“mmm-hmm,”_ and a short nod of the head, and this time, Levi believes him. They’re both ready now. Levi leans forward, rests his forehead on Eren’s, closes his eyes, takes a breath. Eren wraps his legs around him, and then Levi’s hips begin a slow, steady rhythm.

Every push and pull is done with intent, every gasp and moan genuine. The pace remains languorous, and their eyes remain closed, their mouths hang open in perpetual moans. Their bodies tremble with the breathtaking pleasure of their first intimacy and the overwhelming emotion of being made one. 

When Levi stops moving, it’s only for a few seconds at most; only for as long as it takes to wind his arm behind Eren’s knee and hitch his leg up; only for as long as it took to unwind Eren’s arm from behind his back and lay it down above his head. When Levi starts moving again, it’s with his arm above Eren’s head, and their fingers laced together. 

“Oh, goooooddd, Levi, _hnngh_ –!” Eren moans, but that moan is interrupted by _another_ moan. “This feels so– _god_ –this feels so good. I can’t believe– _fuh_ –believe how good you feel. Oh. Oh, fuck. Levi, fuck, fuck, oh my _god_ …”

It isn’t merely pleasure that Eren feels from the thick head of Levi’s cock sliding through his insides like silk whenever he pulls back and withdraws it completely; when the sensual glide of his stiff penis pushing through the ring of tightness makes his spine tingle as it lights up every nerve ending in his reddened, stretched, _acutely_ sensitive anus on its way back in to delve deep inside him. 

There’s more to it than the dizzying bliss of Eren’s soft inner walls gripping him as he drags his cock through him, squeezing as if begging him not to pull out, not to leave him. There’s something else besides elation that floods through him when he’s granted the permission to penetrate his soulmate over and over, the opening between Eren’s legs accepting his erect manhood so easily, inviting him back to where the fit is so snug and perfect that it feels like it was tailored specifically to his body, designed to receive him and him alone.

The heights of the physical and emotional pleasures their first lovemaking brings are unprecedented, but there’s one thing that stands out the most. While it’s just as new and amazing as everything else they’re experiencing tonight, it’s not something either of them anticipated they’d feel: it’s relief. The sense that the storm has passed, and everything is going to be okay. 

And somehow they know, deep down in their bones, that it’s true. And somehow they can tell the other is feeling the same thing they are, and they don’t know why that is, but they don’t ask–they don’t need to.

The air in the bunker is stagnant and humid, thick with the scent of their sex, and the exertion of holding themselves back makes it even harder to breathe as they fuck. The pace remains slow and unhurried; the languid undulation of their bodies lets their pleasure build gradually, allows the temperature to rise only until it reaches a simmer held a mere degree below its boiling point, knowing that only the slightest increase in tempo will send it bubbling over in an instant. 

Their burning bodies are pressed together, their skin slippery and wet with sweat and fluids, sensually sliding against one another and stimulating erogenous zones they didn’t know they had. Levi perceives Eren’s trapped cock steadily enlarging again as their contracting abdominal muscles rub against it. Levi is in awe of how quickly Eren’s able to rebound, wondering if it has something to do with his latent titan abilities. He wouldn’t be ready to go again for at least an hour after climaxing, and Eren’s already gotten off twice. Will he be able to make him come a third time? 

“You’re getting hard again,” Levi states, though he’d intended it to be a question. Eren, too out of breath to voice his answer, swallows and nods instead. Levi is eager to take on the challenge of bringing him off again. He suspects it’s going to take a bit more effort this time around, so he devises a strategy; he’ll shift their position into one that will allow him to stimulate Eren better. After giving Eren a quick kiss on the mouth that turns into two, Levi is ready to put his plan into action. He squeezes Eren’s hand before asking, “want to change positions?”

Levi kisses up and down Eren’s neck while waiting for Eren to answer, but his decision to thrust into him harder causes a further delay in his response. Eren voices his approval as a whisper, and with one final squeeze of Eren’s hand, he pulls out. Eren whines, bemoaning the sudden emptiness, and Levi feels a similar sense of regret over leaving that luscious heat, so he doesn’t keep his precious one waiting.

“On your side,” Levi instructs after Eren lowers his legs, and as he raises himself onto his knees, Eren’s already rolling over in what little space he has between Levi’s thighs. Now that he’s kneeling beside Eren, he has a full view of Eren’s condition. Eren’s halfway there just from being rubbed against, so it shouldn’t take much more to bring it to its full stature. 

The instant Eren has his back to Levi, he looks up at him, pleading with those pathetic, irresistible puppy-dog eyes for Levi to hurry up. Seeing that look again after so many years makes Levi's heart soar; the old Eren is still in there, and he can still wind him around his little finger with just a glance. Levi’s lips quirk subtly up at the edges, and he confuses Eren by huffing sharply through his nose. He’s not laughing at Eren; he’s just so overjoyed, there was no way he could hold that in.

He situates himself behind Eren, his chest pressed to Eren’s back, suddenly cursing his poor, inexperienced choice in positions when he realizes he’ll likely only be able to kiss Eren’s shoulder once he’s inside him. _Too damn tall,_ he thinks, and he’ll absolutely never admit that he’d recently discovered how much he likes the way it feels to be entirely enveloped by Eren’s massive body. Of all the firsts he’d expected them to share tonight, not minding feeling small for once was not one of them. Levi kisses the back of Eren’s neck while he still can and experiences another unexpected first–never in his life had he desired to lick the sweat off of someone’s skin.

With Eren’s leg hitched up to his side again, Levi enters him once more, groaning in unison and trembling at the satisfying sensation. His arm snakes around Eren’s thigh and discovers another part of Eren he wants to touch but is hindered by the awkward angle. Eren, the precious little shit, makes it seem like he hadn’t noticed him struggling to reach around his thigh, and he only put his foot behind Levi because it was more comfortable that way. 

He kisses Eren’s shoulder as thanks, and then, without another moment of hesitation, he holds his cock in place and pushes himself all the way into Eren’s receptive body. 

Something occurs to Levi as he’s wrapping his fingers around Eren’s half-hard penis. He hadn’t taken it into consideration when he’d chosen this position, and it must have been sheer coincidence that Eren faced in the direction that would allow him to use all four fingers and a thumb to stroke him. As another silent thank you, he gives Eren a nice, long thrust, burying himself as deep as he can, and grinds his pelvis against his ass. It sounded like Eren liked it, but just to be sure–

“You okay?” Levi asks as his hips begin a slow roll, giving only shallow thrusts until he’s assured of Eren’s comfort. But Eren’s comfort isn’t his only concern, Levi realizes, so he asks another question before Eren’s answered the first. “Does this feel good for you?”

Eren’s brain supplies him with a longer answer than the one his mouth does. The former says, _“you could fuck me while I’m standing on my head and it would be the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt,”_ while the latter’s answer is only “yeah,” and even that one doesn’t come out all the way because it mostly just sounded like a breath.

And thus, this is how he fucks Eren, with Eren’s long leg bent and his titan-sized foot flexing where it’s braced behind Levi’s hip. After a minute of quick but thorough strokes, Eren swells to full hardness in his hand. Further encouraged by how his touch has Eren’s moans increasing in pitch, volume, _and_ frequency, and now more determined than ever, Levi takes things a step further and uses his other hand to experimentally toy with Eren’s nipple to see if it has any effect. 

His _right_ hand.

Levi doesn’t think Eren noticed that he’d been avoiding drawing attention to his mangled hand. At first, insecurity made him want to hide it, afraid that Eren would find it repulsive, especially compared to his forever intact and perfect body. But now that Eren’s reassured him with both words and actions, it’s guilt that’s making him ashamed. He failed Eren with his failure to kill his brother; he almost died–he thought he _had_ –but he has yet to learn what the outcome would have been if he’d succeeded. And even though he’d miraculously survived, he’ll never be able to protect Eren again. He can’t hold his swords anymore, and he can’t even do something as simple as watching for danger now that he only has one eye. How can he keep him safe? He’s broken. Ruined. Eren deserves someone who can actually protect him.

Eren hasn’t said a word on it, though it’s highly doubtful that he ever would. The kid adores him–the kid _actually still adores him_ , and Levi didn’t need both eyes to see that. He hopes this forget-me-not will be the last, and he’ll do everything in his power to make sure of it.

Levi was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed he’d stopped stroking Eren’s cock and begun fucking him harder. Perhaps it was the intensity of his emotions that distracted him or the surge of determination powering his hips. Or maybe it was his subconscious trying to communicate to Eren the strength of his devotion through his body. Whatever the cause of it, it’s making Eren tremble. Every muscle in his body is contracting– _every_ muscle, including _that_ one.

_Shit. He feels too good._

“Eren?” He asks, trying to hold himself off but unable to slow down because he just feels way too fucking good, holy _shit._ “Y-you think you–” Levi runs out of breath mid-way and gulps down as much air as he can to continue, “think you can come again?”

“Um, I’m… Yeah, actually, I’m–I’m almost there,” Eren desperately pants, surprised that Levi can’t already tell but deciding that now is unquestionably not the time to be sassing him. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t because he’s too busy screaming his lungs out because Levi just squeezed his cock, scratched his nipple, and fucking _rammed_ himself into him–and he’s still doing it.

“Tell me when, okay? I want to… do it together,” Levi, with slight sheepishness, explains. After Eren nods, Levi suddenly finds that he can’t move his hand–the hand on Eren’s chest. Eren is whimpering like he’s in pain and squeezing it. Hard. So hard that it actually kind of hurts, but it’s already ruined beyond repair, so what’re a few more broken bones? They’ll heal. Eventually. Again.

As Levi edges closer and closer to his peak, his imminent orgasm reminds him of another thing that–well, truthfully, he _had_ considered, and at length, but _hadn’t_ considered whether Eren would actually want it, even though he had a strong feeling that he would.

“Eren, I’m close. Should I–do you want me to–” 

“Come inside me. Fuck, I want you to c–c–”

Levi cries out with a mighty groan and goes stock-still inside Eren. A second later, he’s anything but, violently convulsing from top to toe, his hand abruptly leaving Eren’s swelling and strenuously pulsating length to join the other in pulling Eren as tightly against him as matter will allow. His loud cries taper off into whimpers with every powerful throb of his cock, spurting his seed into Eren with such force that Eren responds each time with a clipped, surprised-sounding _“oh!”_

Levi tries to convince his shaking hand to move back to Eren’s cock to bring him off, but he seems to have lost control over his body. The tightening tendons in his arms and hands jerk him away at every attempt. As Levi struggles against his rebellious muscles, he discovers that he can’t feel his hands _or_ the arms they’re attached to. Hell, Levi wouldn’t think he still had a body at all if it weren’t for the pins and needles running over every inch of his overheated skin. Or the searing heat around his spasming cock. Or the borderline painful pressure in his pelvis bolting down through his penis whenever another emission surges up from somewhere deep inside him to be released into the tight, wet channel of the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with. 

Eren doesn’t need the help. Levi’s given him more than enough. Though he _emphatically_ appreciated the gesture, Eren didn’t even need Levi’s hand to begin with–Levi held them at precisely the right angle for his astonishingly hard cock to put constant pressure on his way, way, _way_ too sensitive prostate–not to mention _jab into it_ every time he slid back in. Given another minute of it, Eren would’ve come just from that, but then Levi dug his nails into him, screamed in his ear, and fired some sort of projectile weapon directly into his ass. Or that could’ve just been the way Humanity’s Strongest Soldier ejaculates. If so, he’s just made a very thrilling discovery and would like to further explore it at every possible opportunity.

Knowing that Levi just came inside him–and feeling it happen–was more arousing than a lifetime’s worth of fantasies combined. It was a pleasure beyond pleasure, not just for his body but also for his heart. Levi– _his_ Levi–is alive and here with him; here beside him, here inside him, here becoming one with him, choosing him, protecting him, calling his name– _loving_ him. And that–the overwhelming joy and relief of it–is what sends him soaring.

Levi gets his wish.

Just as he always has, Eren follows Levi, only a few paces behind him as he leads him to the edge; Levi waited there for him so they could fall over it together. Levi pulls Eren’s climax out of him, pushes it out of his body by filling him with his own until he overflows. Eren keens in ecstasy, the high sound of his voice harmonizing with Levi’s deep moans, though his body’s rhythm is out of sync with his lover’s. Eren’s contractions are rapid, wild–his muscles flutter while Levi’s roll, his semen lands on the bedsheets in quick, small spurts, whereas Levi’s are long, full, powerful built-up surges that strike his inner walls with discernible impact. 

The sheer, earth-shattering ferocity of the best orgasm of his life renders Eren completely and utterly spent in every sense of the word, with not a single drop of energy (or jizz) left in him. With no more strength to hold it in place, Eren’s shaking leg weakly flops down from where it had previously anchored on Levi for support. Now that the rush is gone, he’s made vaguely aware of the ache in his groin muscle, but there’s no better painkiller in the world than a mind-blowing orgasm.

When Eren brought his legs together, it got even tighter inside him, and even after Levi thinks he’s empty, the erratic contractions of Eren’s insides around his still-twitching cock continue to milk more and more from him until he’s sure there’s nothing left inside him to come out. And yet, strangely, the sensation remains. 

Eren’s brain shuts off, and his skeleton melts like iron inside a forge, to which the blazing heat inside his body is closely comparable. He slumps into a puddle of molten brat and sweaty hair and slowly begins to re-solidify as his body cools and his breathing steadies. Levi mirrors him in this, slumping over his body like a wet rag, panting hard and trembling with aftershocks.

He knows it’s futile since he doesn’t have the strength to keep even a stiff breeze from blowing him away, but Eren tries anyway, weakly flailing his arm to grab onto some part of Levi and prevent him from rolling onto his back. He might have just enough to move his mouth, though, so he tries that approach instead. His words come out slurred and mumbling, but the important thing is that they do come out.

“Not yet. Leave it in.”

“Okay.”

He holds Eren in his arms while they come down together, a sticky heap of tangled legs and even more tangled hair, which Levi brushes away but keeps falling back into his face whenever Eren moves. Levi decides to make the best of it and ignores how it tickles his nose in favor of enjoying its scent. It’s familiar; he’s smelled it many times before and found comfort in it, but it’s powerful up close like this, especially with how Eren’s post-coital sweat and body heat heighten it so much that it fills the air with his presence and spreads over him like a blanket.

Levi remains joined with his beloved as he goes soft, only allowing it to slip out of him when he no longer has a say in it.

\---

Levi has been quiet for a long time, and, apart from his blissful sighs and appreciative, smiling hums, so has Eren. He’s had his eyes closed, enjoying his afterglow and the affection and safety Levi’s gentle hands impart while caressing him, listening to the comforting rhythm of his soft, even breaths that threaten to lull him to sleep.

Eren has a drowsy, sated smile on his face as his eyes slowly blink open, and he’s a little surprised to see that Levi is fully awake, propped up on his elbow and staring down at him with a similar smile and so much warmth in his expression that it makes his stomach flutter with butterflies. Has Levi been staring at him this entire time? His heart skips a beat at the notion, and his voice is airy and dreamlike when he asks, “What are you doing?”

Levi doesn’t answer immediately, just silently runs his knuckles down the side of Eren’s face again. Levi’s subtle smile deepens when he slides his fingers into the sweaty hair behind Eren’s ear, and Eren leans into his touch with another sweet-sounding hum, his own larger smile deepening to mirror Levi’s. 

“Just looking at you,” Levi explains, gazing into Eren’s sleepy-looking eyes as he combs down the length of the tangled hair that frames Eren’s face, separating a strand between two fingers and twirling it around them. 

_Just looking at you one last time._

Even though they’d just engaged in the most intimate of acts, this is what makes Eren blush the brightest. Somehow he feels more exposed lying under the covers with the man he adores gazing at him lovingly and playing with his hair than he did while he had a cock up his ass. Levi sees this and makes a small sound of amusement in his throat, smiling wider than Eren’s ever seen him smile–than _anyone’s_ ever seen him smile.

When Eren sees this, the swarm of butterflies in his stomach go into a frenzy and fly up into his chest, and his Adam’s apple bobs with the force he needs to use to swallow them down. _Levi has dimples._

“Eren.” Levi’s velvety voice breaks the silence, and Eren swallows again before turning his eyes back up to meet Levi’s. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I do something?” Levi asks, and the way he says those words confuses Eren because he sounds thoughtful and not horny. _What kind of something does he want to do that he needs to ask permission for while we’re naked in bed after just having had sex?_

“Levi, you can do anything to me,” Eren answers, and he’s the one who sounds like he’s horny because now he’s suddenly awake enough to imagine the possibilities.

“Come with me,” Levi says, and Eren’s internal smartass is about to make a joke, but Levi is already throwing the sheets aside and getting out of bed. 

Eren hadn’t realized how sweaty he still was until the breeze from the sheets gives him a chill that makes him look like a plucked bird. He feels a bit warmer when he sees Levi waiting for him beside the bed with everything on display. When Levi smirks at him, he feels even warmer, his cheeks heating in embarrassment at realizing that Levi caught him staring. Levi is not a particularly patient man, so when Levi extends his hand instead of barking at him, it feels so unbelievably special that it nearly brings him to tears.

Eren takes Levi’s hand, and Levi leads the way.


	7. Chapter 7

Levi’s hand moves in long strokes, up and down with quick twists, the other one holding the leather belt taut.

“Stay still.”

Eren isn’t sure why Levi had to say it because he doesn’t think he’s ever been this still in his life. It’s emotion that has him frozen in place, but that emotion is not fear. Levi is looking into his eyes, searching their depths until he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Eren trusts him.

The blade that hovers over Eren’s skin is the undeniable proof that the trust between them has never dulled. They wouldn’t be here if it had.

Eren closes his eyes. His head tips back, and he offers up his exposed throat to Levi, willingly surrendering control to the man with the blade in his hand. Eren knows that no knife is worthy of Levi’s hand unless its edge is utterly lethal, thin as a hair and sharp enough to split one–and that’s why Eren can barely feel it as Levi touches it to his skin. Eren is completely at peace as the blade moves along his neck because it’s Levi’s careful, steady fingers holding it. Levi is in control. He is safe in his captain’s hands.

Eren inhales deeply and relaxes, luxuriating in Levi’s strange idea of pampering. Is this why all those people with money go to those places? He cracks open his eyes when the straight razor leaves his face, and he sees Levi fling the speckled lather from its edge with a sharp flick of the wrist. It’s just as soothing to watch Levi work as it is to feel it, so Eren keeps his eyes open, observing Levi’s face up close from his perch on the toilet. Levi’s pressing his lips together and furrowing his brow in deep concentration, his one-eyed gaze trained unwaveringly on the razor-sharp edge he’s scraping down Eren’s jaw in quick strokes, fastidious and precise in maintaining its angle. 

Levi maneuvers Eren’s head this way and that, stopping now and then to clear the blade of the gross-looking clumps of hair and lather before they can impede his view. It disappoints Eren when Levi steps away to set the razor on the sink beside the cup with the stiff boar-bristle brush sticking out of it. Levi returns to grab him by the chin, turning Eren’s face around, examining it from every angle until he’s satisfied. He reaches over for the towel that he’d dampened with warm water, and Eren closes his eyes again as Levi cleans the residual soap and whiskers from his face.

When Levi walks away, Eren stands up and stretches, intending to go check out Levi’s handiwork in the mirror, only to have Levi back in front of him with the razor in his hand again. 

“I’m not done yet,” Levi says, and for once, he doesn’t seem bothered about having to look up so high to see Eren’s face. “Turn around and sit back down.”

Eren has no reason or desire to question his captain’s orders, so he turns around and straddles the toilet, looking forward to receiving more pampering of some type, but not as enthusiastic about being forced to look at the wall instead of Levi’s face. As soon as he’s settled, Eren feels Levi gather his hair into his hand, and he’s wondering what Levi’s intentions are–he’s not worried, just curious; the man is full of surprises, and they’re all good ones–but the next thing he feels is Levi pressing his lips to the top of his head. He hears Levi inhale deeply, and he’s tickled both by Levi’s breath when he exhales and by how sweet he finds Levi’s action to be. 

Finally, Levi steps back, and it sounded like Levi was whispering something to him, though he doesn’t see how he could’ve missed it with Levi standing so close behind him and the room being so quiet. He must’ve been spacing out again. He always seems to do that when Levi’s around.

“Hm? Did you say something?” 

“Nothing.”

That’s weird. Eren could’ve sworn he heard Levi saying something after he stepped away because it almost sounded like Levi said, _“goodbye._ ” Must’ve been his imagination.

Levi’s fist tightens around the hair in his hand. Eren feels a tug as Levi pulls on the ponytail harder. He hears a scrape, and then the tension is gone. 

Levi discards the severed strands, and he doesn’t look at them again once he's tossed them aside; he doesn’t care that they scatter all over the floor and make a huge mess. He won’t clean them up before they leave. They’ll remain buried in this underground place and then forgotten. 


	8. Chapter 8

Levi doesn’t look up from the basin when long arms wrap around him from behind. A smooth, slightly damp chin rests on Levi’s bare shoulder as he works the last traces of lather from the stiff boar-bristle brush. But when he hears a mirthful-sounding hum in his ear and feels a velvet-soft cheek rubbing against his jaw, he raises his head just enough to see what’s going on in the mirror in front of him. 

What Levi sees reflected back at him is an obnoxiously tall brat hunched over him. Eren is rubbing his giant hands over Levi’s hips while making eye contact with him in the mirror and smiling like the goddamn sun incarnate. Levi rolls his eyes and sighs in resignation–truthfully, it’s all for show–and after setting the shaving brush onto its stand on the back of the sink, he rinses the last of the lather from his hands, shakes the excess water from them, and, letting his tired eyes fall shut, he leans back into the warmth and security of Eren’s embrace.

They’re silent for a while as they enjoy the feel of one another’s bare skin; their peaceful, even breaths and the last of the foamy sinkwater gurgling down the drain are the only sounds they can hear. It's weird, now that they're aware of it.

This is something strange and new to them, and it’s going to take some getting used to. Not the relationship; they've only been official for a few hours, but it feels so natural to them that it's like they've been together for years–really, they have–and they've just returned home after a long journey. They already know each other's quirks, their likes and dislikes, their body language and expressions, but now there are the intimate details they get to learn about one another, and they've only just begun exploring this exciting new territory.

It's not the love that's strange; it’s that shiny new thing that Eren brought back from across the sea that is. Something so outlandish and impossible-sounding that its mere existence seemed the stuff of fairy stories until Eren somehow got his hands on it. It _was_ real, and Eren snatched it up, tied a blood-red ribbon around it, and then dropped it into Levi's lap. Eren scoured the entire world to find it just so he could give it to him. It was a gift for Levi, but maybe, if he was very lucky, they could enjoy it together. 

That thing was peace, and now that it’s all theirs, they’re going to unabashedly gorge themselves to bursting on every last bit of it they can. 

Eren’s hands drift away from Levi’s hips, and Levi convulses at the sensation of fingertips lightly traveling up his belly. Levi staunchly refuses to accept the rumor that Humanity’s Strongest Soldier might be ticklish. He’s relieved that the embarrassing twitching stops when Eren’s fingers are off his stomach, and then he sighs at how relaxing it is to feel those gentle fingertips smoothing over his chest. It feels so nice that if Eren keeps doing it, Levi might fall asleep standing up–so long as the little shit doesn’t start rubbing his nipples, which really wouldn't be all _that_ bad.

But then Levi’s drowsy brain begins to pick up on something. What he notices are the gradual changes in how Eren moves his hands over his skin, but it still feels good, so he ignores the heavy feeling growing in his gut until only Eren's fingertips are touching him, and that’s what makes him open his eyes. 

When Levi’s eyelids crack open and he looks ahead at their reflections in the mirror, Eren’s expression is different than it was the last time he saw it. It’s more serious now; he’s not grinning like he was before he closed his eyes. Eren doesn’t look unhappy, per se, only like he’s lost in thought. Levi doesn’t have to ask what he's thinking about; he sees what Eren is watching himself do in the mirror. 

Eren stops following his fingers’ movement when he notices the tension in Levi’s posture, and his hand stills entirely once he sees that Levi’s eyes are open. Levi dismissed his question before, so he’s afraid to ask again, but this time… This time he doesn’t need to because Levi offers.

“Do you want me to tell you about them?”

Eren looks hesitant to answer. Levi sees him chewing the inside of his lip, so he gives Eren a gesture of reassurance; he places his hand on his chest, right on top of Eren’s. Eren is tall enough that Levi can see his reflection’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and when Levi’s eyes lock with his in the mirror, Eren’s reflection nods.

“Let’s take a shower first. I'm itchy as fuck from this hair you got all over me.” 

Eren’s sunny expression returns in an instant, and that’s precisely how long it takes for it to disappear again. Not because he’s frowning now, but because Eren’s dropped his face onto the top of Levi’s head and hid it. Eren’s snort of laughter ruffles Levi’s hair, and when Levi tsks him in that familiar way, Eren’s shoulders start shaking, and he ruffles Levi’s hair even more when his laughter comes out of his nose instead of his mouth. Levi crosses his arms over his chest and scowls into the mirror even though Eren can’t see him because he’s nuzzling his nose in his hair and squeezing his eyes closed to keep himself from outright howling in amusement.

Levi’s had enough of this. He’s really done a piss-poor job of disciplining this brat, and this must be remedied immediately.

He watches his arm raise to deliver Eren’s punishment, and when Eren yelps and looks up at his reflection, it’s with the most satisfyingly offended expression. Levi smirks at his reward of widened-eyes and a jaw dropped in shock.

“Ow! What the hell?” It’s Levi who has to contain his laughter when Eren’s reflection pouts and rubs his unfairly persecuted nipple. The reflection disappears and is replaced by the young man in the flesh when Levi turns around to face him.

“You done now?” Levi’s menacing glare isn’t as effective when he has to tilt his head back to look at Eren’s face. Actually, it’s not effective at all when he’s pouting while glaring. 

“Sorry, Captain,” Eren apologizes, though it doesn’t seem much like he feels any actual remorse over it when there’s a shit-eating grin on his face while he does.

“Oi! What did I tell you about that ‘captain’ shit?” Levi narrows his eyes and crosses his arms tighter. Still not intimidating. But that’s okay because Eren knows it’s all a put-on. Levi doesn’t understand why Eren’s still laughing, though. It’s not that funny. He doesn’t know that Eren’s laughter isn’t because he’s amused by his tomfoolery. It was initially, and, technically, still is, but now it’s not amusement that’s making him laugh–it’s overwhelming, uncontainable joy. 

Eren never in his life imagined he’d end up in this situation. Naked in a bunker, standing on a pile of his own hair, embracing the love of his life who is also naked, and who decided that the first thing he should do after losing his virginity was to _give him a haircut and shave him_. And yet here they are, and that stony-faced beast of a man he loves with all his heart is here joking around with him. Eren Jaeger, the titan, Humanity’s Last Hope, the savior of the human race, is _laughing and joking with Captain Levi Ackerman, Humanity’s Strongest Soldier_ –and he's doing it with an ass full of his sperm.

And that man, the one who could make the devil himself shit his pants in fear and who is still glowering at him, just flicked him on the nose. He can’t control it anymore. He can't, absolutely _cannot_ -this is all just so surreal, and Levi is so cute, he can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Eren Jaeger, get in the goddamn bathtub.”

Eren Jaeger howls in laughter, and Levi Ackerman rubs his forehead because he has the most adorable headache in the world.


End file.
